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ENGLISH NOVEL OF THE 18 AND 19 CENTURY

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Karahasanovi Arnesa

England in 18. Century


In the 18th century Britain was free from the revolutionary atmosphere that prevailed in the 17th century. The country became more and wealthier through trade; the middle-class and landowners lived in a mood of complacency. The power of the king continued to decline. For the first time the king's ministers became real policymakers. In 1707 the Act of Union formally united England and Scotland. In 1714, when Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts died, Parliament chose the German-speaking elector of Hanover who was crowned as George I. He was succeeded by his son, George II, who, like his father, had little interest in British internal affairs. The most outstanding political leader of this time was Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), the first 'Prime Minister', who developed the idea of the Cabinet, i.e. a group of ministers who took the actual control of administration from the Crown. In Parliament a two-party system began to evolve. Those who chiefly represented the financial and mercantile interests of the cities and towns, and the progressive element in the aristocracy opposed to any interference in politics by the monarchy were called Whigs. Those who were strongly attached to tradition and the monarchy were called Tories. The Tories were supported by the gentry, the landed aristocracy, and the Anglican Church. At the end of the 18th century Britain entered the period known as the Industrial Revolution, brought about by the use of machinery and steam power for the manufacture of goods as a result of the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1769. The Industrial Revolution led to a rapid increase in national prosperity. At the beginning of the 18th century the population of England and Wales reached five and a half million. A third of the total population lived in south-eastern England. The birth-rate rose slowly because killer diseases such as smallpox, dysentery, consumption, and typhus were widespread. Shortage of food, inadequate housing conditions and also excessive drinking of cheap gin had disastrous effects on the poorer classes. The rich were hardly less exposed to disease due to a general disregard of hygiene. However, throughout the 18th century important improvements in living conditions were made, and by the early 19th century the population of England and Wales had almost doubled. This was mainly due to increased production of food, including potatoes, cheese, and fresh meat. Thanks to the availability of coal, homes could be warmer in winter. In general clothing and soap were cheaper than previously. Nevertheless, about 80 per cent of the population remained poor. The majority of people still lived in the countryside and their main occupations were agriculture and rural crafts. Most farmers were smallholders renting up to 8 hectares of land. Freeholders owned their land and were socially superior to smallholders. At the bottom of the social structure were the landless labourers who worked on large farms, especially in summer; in winter they were often out of work. At the top of the social hierarchy were the nobility, who held the highest offices and accumulated the greatest wealth, and the gentry, who included the major landowners in a county but were not necessarily of noble birth. The chief landowner in a village was called the squire. He was usually the local Justice of the Peace. Another important person in the district was the parson who looked after the religious needs of his parishioners. In the late 18th century there were the beginnings of a movement of population away from the countryside into the towns, partly as a result of enclosures. This meant that the old common land used by peasants for grazing was taken over by private landowners for more intensive agriculture and enclosed by hedgerows. The conditions of women were difficult. They did not have many rights and were financially dependent on their husbands or families. An average wife spent some 15 years either in a state of pregnancy or in nursing a child for the first year of its life.

ENGLAND IN 19.CENTRURY
After the loss of the American colonies in 1783 Britain began to look for new colonies in order to find cheap sources of raw materials. The 19th century brought about the greatest prosperity in Britain. Its sources lay in colonial expansion, industrialisation, improved transport, and social reforms. At the beginning of the century Britain was at war with Napoleonic France. In 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree forbidding any country under his control from trading with Britain. In the following year, the British issued Orders in Council, granting the right to seize neutral shipping bound for French controlled ports. This decision led to a war with the USA (1812-1814). In 1815, the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) defeated Napoleon at Waterloo near Brussels, and after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Britain became the greatest and richest power in Europe. The British controlled world trade. In the 19th century the population of Britain increased rapidly. By 1815 it had reached 13 million and London was one of the largest cities in Europe (1 million inhabitants). By 1850 half the population lived in towns, and London had more than 2 million inhabitants. Between 1750 and 1850 the population of Britain increased threefold. Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, a younger son of King George III, succeeded her uncle, William IV, in 1837. Her reign lasted until her death in 1901, and it was marked by a steady growth of national wealth and expansion of the empire. Britain held the unchallenged position of world economic and political leadership. A popular saying of the time was that the sun never set on the British Empire, which was so vast. In the 19th century the empire included India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, large parts of Africa, and many smaller territories. In the second half of the 19th century Britain was transformed from an agricultural to a modern industrial country. George Stephenson (1781-1848) invented the first locomotive which led to development of an efficient railway network enabling the quick transport of goods and passengers. Population shifted from the countryside to cities. In industry real wages doubled between 1860 and 1874. In the 19th century Britain changed from being a net exporter of agricultural produce to being a net importer. Industrialization and urbanization continued at a great rate. However, the growth of towns was accompanied by the spread of epidemics. Cholera was one of the most frightening diseases of the 19th century. There were serious outbreaks in Britain in 1831-1832, 1838, 1848-1849 and 1854. Industrial and urban centers grew in the Midlands and the North. Manufacturing wages were higher than in agriculture and many farm laborers migrated to towns. However, a lot of people lacked a steady income. The conditions of the poor were appalling. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act set up a new system of poor relief. Poor people had to enter workhouses if they wished to receive help. Life in the workhouse was made as harsh as possible to deter 'scroungers'. In spite of the growing importance of the middle class, the British aristocracy and the landed elite dominated Parliament. The enactment of the so-called Corn Laws in 1815, which prohibited the import of cheap wheat from overseas, was an exam plea of state protection of the landed interest. The ideology that the state should not interfere in the affairs of society was called laissez-faire. As far as the Industrial Revolution was concerned, the state simply did not possess the means to direct the economy, and laissez-faire was the only viable policy. Economic development and the provision of an economic infrastructure were left entirely to the private sector. The state confined itself to the provision of national security and the maintenance of internal stability, largely through local justices in the early years of the century. The state first began to take responsibility for social welfare after the institutional reforms of the Whig administrations of the 1830s. Thereafter, state activity spread to include ever larger areas of life, though the British state was never as intrusive as its European counterparts. The growing prosperity of England was due primarily to her thriving industry, commerce and foreign trade. Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, said proudly: 'We are living at a period of most wonderful transition which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which all history points - the realization of the unity of mankind'

Modesty prevented him from adding 'under the rule of Britain' but he certainly meant it! In the 1870s Britain produced one-half of the world's iron. The Victorian Age was marked by a great sense of confidence stemming from the country's supreme position in world affairs. The English way of life was thus seen as superior to that of other races. Cecil Rhodes once wrote to a young friend: 'Remember that you were born an Englishman, and as such, you have already won first prize in the lottery of life' this self-righteousness (despite Victorian hypocrisy), often quite sincere lay behind the paternalistic attitude adopted towards the peoples of the Empire. Carrying 'the white man's burden' was seen as a duty to bestow the benefits of English rule on 'uncivilized' nations. On the whole this confidence lasted right up until the devastation of the First World War. The Victorians were much preoccupied by the issues of faith and doubt. By questioning the literal truth of the biblical account of Creation, Charles Darwin disturbed many believers. Science and Religion seemed to contradict each other. In the period 1830-1850, which marked the second phase of the Industrial Revolution in England, there was a great deal of unrest among the working-classes. Its cause was mainly economic. Unemployment, long working hours and high prices were the most characteristic causes of popular discontent. Radically-minded members of the upper classes and working-class leaders urged reform which would improve the economic conditions of a wide section of the population. In Parliament the aspirations of the working-classes received the support of a small party of Radicals who struggled for manhood suffrage, annual parliaments, and adequate representation of the industrial areas. The Radical Reform Movement was also supported by newspapers such as the Manchester Register as well as by the Union Society, a local organization which promoted self-education of the working-classes in order to prepare themselves for political leadership. Mass meetings and riots were organized as popular forms of protest. The most persuasive popular orator of the post-Napoleonic period was Henry Hunt whose speech in Manchester on 16 August 1819 attracted about 80,000 people. In response, the local yeomanry massacred the unarmed people. Over 400 were injured and eleven died. Jn consequence, restrictive laws were passed by Parliament and the radical reform movement was suppressed for some time. The working-classes were denied the right to participate in political life. After the passing of the Factory Act of 1833, children under nine were forbidden to work in textile factories, and working hours for older children were limited to a maximum of 48 a week for those under 13, and 69 for 'young persons' of 13 to 18 years old. This was the first instance of state intervention in the laissez-faire economy. The Factory Act of 1844 reduced the work of children under 13 to 6.5 hours a day. Women's working hours were reduced to 12 a day. All dangerous machinery had to be fenced. The Reform Act of 1832, which increased the franchise, did not satisfy the working-classes because it still excluded the vast majority of them from participation in both national and local government. It was beneficial to the middle-classes, i.e. factory owners. In order to qualify for voting a man needed to earn at least 150 a year. An ordinary worker earned under 50 In 1836 William Lovett and others founded the Working Men's Association which drew up a Charter containing six political demands: annual elections to Parliament; manhood suffrage; payment of members of Parliament; secret ballots; equal electoral districts; abolition of the property qualification for membership of the House of Commons.

The Chartists appealed to workers to found their own organizations and to agitate for the Charter by presenting petitions to Parliament (1839, 1842, 1848).

The emergence of the novel


Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written. His work is often considered amongst the most important works in all of Western literature. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").He has been dubbed El Prncipe de los Ingenios ("The Prince of Wits"). Alonso Quixano (or Quijano), a retired country gentleman nearing 50 years of age, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Quixano eventually appears to other people to have lost his mind from little sleep and food and because of so much reading. Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator.

The Spectator was a daily publication of 171112, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England
after they met at Charterhouse School. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison's, also contributed to the publication. Each 'paper', or 'number', was approximately 2,500 words long, and the original run consisted of 555 numbers. These were collected into seven volumes. The paper was revived without the involvement of Steele in 1714, appearing thrice weekly for six months, and these papers when collected formed the eighth volume. Mix of facts and fiction. First magazine! Samuel Richardson (19 August 1689 4 July 1761) was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740),Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison(1753). Richardson was an established printer and publisher for most of his life and printed almost 500 different works, with journals and magazines. First who had written the novel. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740. It tells the story of a beautiful but poor 15-year old servant-maid named Pamela Andrews whose master, Mr. B, a nobleman, makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of his mother whose maid she was since the age of 12. Mr. B is infatuated with her, first by her looks and then her innocence and intelligence but his high rank hinders him from proposing marriage. He abducts her and locks her up in one of his estates and attempts to seduce and ravish her. She rejects him continually refusing to be his mistress though she begins to realize that she is falling in love with him. He intercepts and reads her letters to her parents and becomes even more enamored by her innocence and intelligence and her continuous attempts to escape. Her virtue is eventually rewarded when he shows his sincerity by proposing an equitable marriage to her as his legal wife. In the second part of the novel, Pamela attempts to accommodate herself to upper-class society and to build a successful relationship with him. The story was a bestseller of its time and was very widely read, even though it also received criticism for its perceived licentiousness. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is one of the longest novels in the English language. An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or Shamela, as it is more commonly known, is a satirical novel written by Henry Fielding and first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr. Conny Keyber. (Fielding never owned to writing the work but it is widely considered to be his.) It is a direct attack on the thenpopular novel Pamela (November 1740) by Fielding's contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson and is composed, like Pamela, in epistolary form.

Burlesque is literary or dramatic work that ridicules a subject either by presenting a solemn subject in an
undignified style or an inconsequential subject in a dignified style. The Licensing Act or Theatrical Licensing Act of 21 June 1737 (citation 10 Geo. II c. 28) was a landmark act of censorship of the British stage and one of the most determining factors in the development of Augustan drama. The terms of the Act were that from that point forward, the Lord Chamberlain had the power to approve any play before it was staged.

The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pcaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular sub-genre of
prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. This style of novel originated in sixteenth century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It continues to influence modern literature. Joseph Andrews, or The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, was the first published full-length novel of the English author and magistrate Henry Fielding, and indeed among the first novels in the English language. Published in 1742 and defined by Fielding as a comic romance, it is the story of a good-natured footman's adventures on the road home from London with his friend and mentor, the absent-minded parson Abraham Adams. The novel represents the coming together of the two competing aesthetics of eighteenth-century literature: the mock-heroic and neoclassical (and, by extension, aristocratic) approach of Augustans such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift; and the popular, domestic prose fiction of novelists such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson.

Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of
both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The. The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel. Melodrama and parody (including self-parody) were other long-standing features of the Gothic initiated by Walpole. The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in the summer of 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London in 4 volumes. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results. According to Radcliffe's contract for the book, which is housed at the University of Virginia Library, she was paid 500 for the manuscript. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel written by Mary Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen and the novel was published when she was nineteen. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France. Through research it can be determined the many influences the author was under during the creation of the novel. She had traveled the region in which the story takes place, and the topics of galvanism and such other occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions. Frankenstein is infused with some elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement, and is also considered to be one of the earliest examples of science fiction. It was also a warning against the expansion of modern man in the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus. The story has had an influence across literature and popular culture and spawned a complete genre of horror stories and films. Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming

individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon. A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm"in satire, irony is militant"but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack. Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, and media such as lyrics. A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his most masterly. The Tale is a prose parody which is divided into sections of "digression" and a "tale" of three brothers, each representing one of the main branches of western Christianity. The Battle of the Books is the name of a short satire written by Jonathan Swift and published as part of the prolegomena to his A Tale of a Tub in 1704. It depicts a literal battle between books in the King's Library (housed in St. James's Palace at the time of the writing), as ideas and authors struggle for supremacy. Because of the satire, "The Battle of the Books" has become a term for the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. The spider and the bee-The famous exchange between the spider and the bee recounted below occurs in the context of Jonathan's Swift satirical telling of a metaphorical battle between ancient and moderns books on the shelves of the St. James library. The entire story presents a contrast between the values of ancient and modern scholarship. As Stanley Rosen (1991) has argued, the real battle has always been between philosophers -- those who concern themselves with relative desirability of particular ends, with questions of meaning and purpose -- and sophists -- those who focus on most efficient means to a given end with little consideration for the merit of the end pursued. We join the story just as some former champions of the ancients have defected to the cause of the moderns...

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). It may consist of a single sheet
of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths (called a leaflet), or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book. In order to count as a pamphlet, UNESCO requires a publication (other than a periodical) to have "at least 5 but not more than 48 pages exclusive of the cover pages";[1] a longer item is a book. A Modest Proposal For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

Summaries themes - characters

GULLIVERS TRAVELS
GENRE: SATIRE
POINT OF VIEW:

Gulliver speaks in the first person. He describes other characters and actions as they appear to him.
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 19 October 1745) was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonymssuch as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapieror anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian andJuvenalian styles. Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), is a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is Swift's best known fulllength work, and a classic of English literature. The book became tremendously popular as soon as it was published (John Gay said in a 1726 letter to Swift that "it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery"); since then, it has never been out of print. The book presents itself as a simple traveller's narrative with the disingenuous title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, its authorship assigned only to "Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, then a captain of several ships". The text is presented as a first-person narrative by the supposed author, and the name "Gulliver" appears nowhere in the book other than the title page. Different editions contain different versions of the prefatory material which are basically the same as forewords in modern books. The book proper then is divided into four parts, which are as follows.

SUMMARY
Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput
The book begins with a very short preamble in which Gulliver, in the style of books of the time, gives a brief outline of his life and history prior to his voyages. He enjoys travelling, although it is that love of travel that is his downfall. On his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck and awakes to find himself a prisoner of a race of people one-twelfth the size of normal human beings, less than 6 inches (15cm) high, who are inhabitants of the neighboring and rival countries of Lilliput and Blefuscu. After giving assurances of his good behavior, he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the court. From there, the book follows Gulliver's observations on the Court of Lilliput, which is intended to satirize the court of George I (King of England at the time of the writing of the Travels). Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbors the Blefuscudians by stealing their fleet. However, he refuses to reduce the country to a province of Lilliput, displeasing the King and the court. Gulliver is charged with treason and sentenced to be blinded. With the assistance of a kind friend, Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a passing ship which safely takes him back home. The Building of residence that Gulliver is given in Lilliput is of note, as in this section he describes it as a temple in which there had some years ago been a murder and the building had been abandoned. Swift in this section is revealing himself as a member of the Freemasons; this being an allusion to the murder of the legendary grand master of the Freemasons, Hiram Abiff.

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag


When the sailing ship Adventure is steered off course by storms and forced to go in to land for want of fresh water, Gulliver is abandoned by his companions and found by a farmer who is 72 feet (22 m) tall (the scale of Lilliput is approximately 1:12; of Brobdingnag 12:1, judging from Gulliver estimating a man's step being 10 yards (9.1 m)). He brings Gulliver home and his daughter cares for Gulliver. The farmer treats him as a curiosity and exhibits him for

money. The word gets out and the Queen of Brobdingnag wants to see the show. She loves Gulliver and he is then bought by her and kept as a favourite at court. Since Gulliver is too small to use their huge chairs, beds, knives and forks, the queen commissions a small house to be built for Gulliver so that he can be carried around in it. This box is referred to as his travelling box. In between small adventures such as fighting giant wasps and being carried to the roof by a monkey, he discusses the state of Europe with the King. The King is not impressed with Gulliver's accounts of Europe, especially upon learning of the usage of guns and cannons. On a trip to the seaside, his "travelling box" is seized by a giant eagle which drops Gulliver and his box right into the sea where he is picked up by some sailors, who return him to England.

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan


After Gulliver's ship was attacked by pirates, he is marooned near a desolate rocky island, near India. Fortunately he is rescued by the flying island of Laputa, a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but unable to use these for practical ends. Laputa's method of throwing rocks at rebellious surface cities also seems the first time that aerial bombardment was conceived as a method of warfare. While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results, in a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments. Gulliver is then taken to Balnibarbi to await a Dutch trader who can take him on to Japan. While waiting for passage, Gulliver takes a short side-trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib, where he visits a magician's dwelling and discusses history with the ghosts of historical figures, the most obvious restatement of the "ancients versus moderns" theme in the book. In Luggnagg he encounters the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal, but not forever young, but rather forever old, complete with the infirmities of old age and considered legally dead at the age of eighty. After reaching Japan, Gulliver asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix", which the Emperor grants. Gulliver returns home, determined to stay there for the rest of his days.

Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms


Despite his earlier intention of remaining at home, Gulliver returns to sea as the captain of a 35 ton merchantman as he is bored with his employment as a surgeon. On this voyage he is forced to find new additions to his crew who he believes to have turned the rest of the crew against him. His pirates then mutiny and after keeping him contained for some time resolve to leave him on the first piece of land they come across and continue as pirates. He is abandoned in a landing boat and comes first upon a race of (apparently) hideous deformed creatures to which he conceives a violent antipathy. Shortly thereafter he meets a horse and comes to understand that the horses (in their language Houyhnhnm or "the perfection of nature") are the rulers and the deformed creatures ("Yahoos") are human beings in their base form. Gulliver becomes a member of the horse's household, and comes to both admire and emulate the Houyhnhnms and their lifestyle, rejecting humans as merely Yahoos endowed with some semblance of reason which they only use to exacerbate and add to the vices Nature gave them. However, an Assembly of the Houyhnhnms rules that Gulliver, a Yahoo with some semblance of reason, is a danger to their civilization and he is expelled. He is then rescued, against his will, by a Portuguese ship, and is surprised to see that Captain Pedro de Mendez, a Yahoo, is a wise, courteous and generous person. He returns to his home in England, but he is unable to reconcile himself to living among Yahoos and becomes a recluse, remaining in his house, largely avoiding his family and his wife, and spending several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables.

Main themes
The abuse of power Who holds power, why they hold it, and how they use or abuse it, are recurring themes throughout Gulliver's Travels. The Lilluptians, despite their small size, wield considerable power over Gulliver, taking advantage of his well-meaning, non-aggressive, and gullible nature to attack him with arrows, hold him prisoner, and finally try to

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entrap him through treachery. Lilliput is governed by a vain and despotic ruler who has his subjects tortured and executed for trivial matters. His ministers are appointed to office not based on their suitability, wisdom, or virtue, but on their skill at "leaping and creeping." The correspondences between Lilliputian people and events and English political life means that Swift intended his portrayal of Lilliput to reflect abuses of power in the English monarchy and government. The Brobdingnagians could, if they wished, dominate through their superior size, but they do not. Although they treat the relatively tiny Gulliver as a plaything and one of them, the farmer, is prepared to work him to death for personal gain, in general the Brobdingnagians do not abuse their power. The King of Brobdingnag is a wise ruler who only wishes to do good for his nation. When he is offered the secret of gunpowder, he refuses on humanitarian grounds, even though this would vastly increase his nation's power. Swift questions the reasons, why certain people hold power over others. The Laputan king assumes that he has a right to hold power over the Balnibarbians on the mainland simply because he is more devoted to abstract and theoretical knowledge than they are. To the reader, on the other hand, he appears ridiculously impractical and not fit to hold power. Similarly, the Laputans view Lord Munodi as hopelessly backward because he does not embrace the reforms of the professors of Lagado Academy; it seems likely that his estate and house will be seized by the government. The reader, however, can clearly see that common sense lies on the side of Munodi, and that if he held power, the kingdom would prosper. A more ambiguous example of power is that wielded by the Houyhnhnms over the Yahoos. Difficult moral questions can be asked about whether the Houyhnhnms have the right to dominate and exploit the Yahoos because they are more rational, intelligent, moral, and virtuous. These qualities may take on a different light when seen from the point of view of the Yahoos, whose very right to exist is debated by the Houyhnhnms in their council. The absurdity of pride Many examples of misplaced pride occur in the novel. The Lilliputians are proud of their military capability, although if Gulliver-sized human beings launched an invasion they would be instantly crushed. Swift draws attention to the absurdity of their pride by having them arrange a military parade in view of Gulliver's exposed nether regions. Gulliver's stay among the Brobdingnagians punctures human pride and vanity as it relates to appearance. Gulliver sees the bodily features and functions of the Brobdingnagians in magnified form. Hence he notes how even a woman who might appear beautiful to her similarly sized compatriots appears to him as a mass of unattractive huge skin pores and mountainous pimples, who is in the habit of voiding gallons of urine. The Laputans are proud of their knowledge of mathematics and music and their habit of abstract contemplation, but the reader can see that these qualities only make them so impractical that their houses fall down, their clothes fail to fit, and their subjects starve. Although Gulliver attacks pride in his final chapter, he fails to notice that he himself has fallen victim to it in his rejection of humanity on the grounds that they are Yahoos. His pride blinds him to genuine virtue, such as that of Don Pedro, and makes him cruelly reject his wife and family. Excrement and bodily functions Swift's emphasis on bodily functions and excrement provides a satirical counterweight to the tendency of his age, which championed man as a rational creature and became known as the Enlightenment. Swift was eager to remind humanity that underneath their pretensions to rationality and superiority, they were made of the same skin, blood, and bone as the animals, and shared their basic needs, appetites, and functions. The individual and society Most of the time during his travels, Gulliver feels isolated from the societies he visits. He does not fit in anywhere, and even during his brief returns to England, he expresses no wish to stay and leaves as quickly as he can. This has led to some critics calling Gulliver's Travels the first novel of modern alienation.

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The country of the Houyhnhnms is unique among the nations Gullliver visits because of its subjugation of the individual to the good of society as a whole, which leads to an orderly and well-run nation. The price is that there is little room for human-style individuality. Nobody can become attached to their children because they may be assigned to another family that has a shortage of children; mates are chosen not by individual preference, but for the good of the race; servant hood is genetically mandated. Only during his stay with the Houyhnhnms does Gulliver wish to assimilate into society. His attempts are ridiculous, leading to his taking on the gait and speech patterns of his horse hosts. More seriously, they are doomed to fail: the Houyhnhnms decide that he is not one of them and expel him. The only society to which Gulliver wishes to belong will not have him. Swift raises questions about the conflict between the individual and society, but does not resolve them. Knowledge versus wisdom Swift emphasizes in Gulliver's Travels that knowledge is not equivalent to wisdom. Certain Lilliputian politicians are knowledgeable about the leaping and creeping necessary to gain power, but the people live in fear of their rulers' edicts condemning the innocent to death. Laputans study abstract mathematics and music, and research high-flown theories in their academy, while the ordinary people starve.

CHARACTERS
Lemuel Gulliver: Lemuel Gulliver is an unremarkable and unimaginative man from middle-class England whose voyages to foreign lands form the central plot. He is morally upright and honest but, as his name suggests, somewhat gullible. As he himself is honest, he naively assumes that everyone else is as honest, and hence believes what he is told. He is an everyman through whose eyes the reader sees and judges the people he encounters. The Lilliputians: The Lilliputians are tiny, six-inch tall people who are filled with self-importance and possess all the petty vices and follies of humankind: greed, hypocrisy, selfishness, and moral corruption. They provide Swift with the opportunity to make the implicit satirical point that in the greater scheme of things, humans, who delude themselves that they are at the pinnacle of creation, are in reality ridiculous and insignificant. In spite of their small size, however, they are capable of doing a great deal of harm, and are treacherous and cruel, as is obvious when they think up gruesome ways to kill Gulliver. Swift used the Lilliputians to satirize English politicians of his time, and several Lilliputians are founded on real people with whom Swift was acquainted. Flimnap, the Lord High Treasurer and most agile of the rope-dancers, is thought to be modeled upon Sir Robert Walpole, leader of the Whig party and the first prime minister of England in the modern sense. The Lilliputian king's agreement to the plan that Gulliver be blinded and starved, presented ironically as an example of his mercy and justice, is a satirical reference to King George I's treatment of captured Jacobite rebels. George had them executed after he had been lauded in Parliament as merciful. The Brobdingnagians: The Brobdingnagians are a giant race of people. As well as being physically bigger than Gulliver, they are also morally superior. Like Gulliver's countrymen, they are subject to all the temptations of humankind, but they choose morality and common sense rather than vice and folly. Though the farmer who finds Gulliver shows greed and lack of compassion in his attempts to profit from him, this is an aberration, not the norm, in this country. The farmer's attitude to Gulliver is offset by the kindness and care of his daughter Glumdalclitch. In addition, as soon as the Queen of Brobdingnag discovers Gulliver's plight, she rescues him from the farmer. Unlike Gulliver's countrymen, the Brobdingnagians have built morality into their systems of government and the members of their government lead by positive example. The king questions Gulliver closely about England, and concludes (in spite of Gulliver's attempts to paint a falsely positive picture) that his compatriots are "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." In the absence of any coherent argument to the contrary apart from Gulliver's indignant patriotism, this statement must be taken as the voice of common sense. Gulliver's account of his time in Brobdingnag is colored by his disgust at their bodily characteristics and functions, which he sees in magnified form because the people are so much bigger than him. However, it is important not to allow Gulliver's fastidiousness to cloud the fact that they are morally superior. The emphasis on physical grossness reinforces Swift's satirical purpose throughout the book in portraying humankind "warts-and-all." The effect is to puncture vanity and self-importance and to counteract the Enlightenment obsession with portraying man as a supremely rational and godlike being.

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The King of Brobdingnag: The King of Brobdingnag rules his people wisely and compassionately. He questions Gulliver about England and is shocked by the moral corruption prevalent in the government and institutions there. The Laputans: The Laputans are a people who are so engaged in abstract thought, particularly about mathematics and music, that they pay no attention to practical matters. They are unable to make clothes that fit or houses that stand. They are experts in astronomy, but the only result of their knowledge of the subject is a great fear of cosmic accidents. They are so inattentive to their environment that they are incapable of normal conversation. They are accompanied by servants with "flappers" with which the servants strike their ears and mouth to alert them to listen or speak. In his portrayal of the Laputans, Swift was satirizing the excesses of abstract and theoretical thought that flourished during the Enlightenment. The King of Laputa: The King of Laputa is preoccupied with mathematics and music. He is only interested in abstract thought, at the expense of practical matters. The Struldbruggs: The Struldbruggs are an immortal race of humans who age without dying. Sunk in despair and sickness, they provide Gulliver with a living lesson in the undesirability of immortality. The Houyhnhnms: The Houyhnhnms are a superior race of rational horses, who run their society according to reason and virtue. The good of the individual is subjugated to the good of the race as a whole, and indeed, the Houyhnhnms do not have strong individual characteristics or even individual names. The Houyhnhnms are the masters of the Yahoos, who act as their servants. Gulliver is morally inferior to the Houyhnhnms, but strives to become one of them, even taking on horse-like characteristics. He is unsuccessful and is expelled from the Houyhnhnms' country because he seems to them to be a superior sort of Yahoo. The satirical purpose of the Houyhnhnms is to represent the most rational aspects of humankind. Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master: Gulliver's master in the country of the Houyhnhnms is not given a name. He is wise, compassionate, and just, and welcomes Gulliver into his home. Ultimately, however, he is forced to ask Gulliver to leave his country on the grounds that Gulliver is not a Houyhnhnm, but a sort of superior Yahoo. The Yahoos: The Yahoos are the bestial and repugnant race of human-like creatures that inhabit the land of the Houyhnhnms. They are held in subjection by the Houyhnhnms and act as their servants, being used for carriage and draught. They are without moral sense and their actions are dictated by greed, destructiveness, and base appetites. The Houyhnhnms believe that Gulliver is a sort of Yahoo, and finally expel him from their kingdom because of this. Gulliver goes to extreme lengths to dissociate himself from the Yahoos and pretend that he is a Houyhnhnm, although physically, he resembles the Yahoos more. The satirical purpose of the Yahoos is to represent all that is selfish, bestial, and violent in human nature, as their behavior mirrors the worst aspects of human behavior.

EXTRA NOTES:

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ROBINSON CRUSOE
GENRE: Adventure story; novel of isolation POINT OF VIEW: CRUSOE narrates in both the first and third person, presenting what he observes. Crusoe occasionally describes his feelings, but only when they are overwhelming. Usually he favors a more factual narrative style focused on actions and events.
Daniel Defoe---Born around 1660, Daniel Foe (he added the "de" prefix later as an aristocratic affectation) was raised in the Presbyterian faith and was, his family hoped, bound to become a clergyman. Instead, he entered secular business. He was also, over the course of his life, a merchant, a volunteer solider in King William's army, and manager of a tiling factory. His first known writing is a satirical piece from 1691. It would be another piece of satirical writing that caused his bankruptcy in 1703: entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, it earned its author a warrant for his arrest and fifteen months' time in Newgate prison. Bitter and disillusioned, Defoe turned to the mercenary life, and became a government spy. He did, however, continue his satirical and polemical writing, on behalf of various factions through the years, before mysteriously vanishing in 1729. He died, alone and again destitute, in 1731. "All Defoe's novels were half-based on truth; he thought of them rather as what we call today fictionalized biographies" (Stanley J. Kunitz & Howard Haycraft, British Authors Before 1800 [New York: H. W. Wilson, 1952] 147). In the case of Robinson Crusoe-no doubt Defoe's most famous work-the "biographical subject" was Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor marooned, at his own choice after a fight with his commanding officer, on an island off the Chilean coast from 1704-09. Defoe's fiction, most probably inspired directly by Selkirk's account, proved incredibly popular: it saw numerous editions, both official and pirated, in 1719 alone, the year of its first publication. A sequel appeared in the same year, and a third volume, Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, debuted the following year, but neither has ever enjoyed the popularity of the first volume, which belongs, in some critics' estimation, among the dozen immortal books in English" (Stanley J. Kunitz & Howard Haycraft, British Authors Before 1800 [New York: H. W. Wilson, 1952] 147-48).

Plot summary
Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer" or "Kreutznr") sets sail from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who want him to stay at home and pursue a career, possibly in law. After a tumultuous journey that sees his ship wrecked in a storm, his lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by Sal pirates and Crusoe becomes the slave of a Moor. After two years of slavery, he manages to escape in a boat with a boy named Xury; later, Crusoe is rescued and befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa. The ship is en route to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation. Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa but he is shipwrecked in a storm about forty miles out to sea on an island (which he calls the Island of Despair) near the mouth of the Orinoco river on September 30, 1659. His companions all die, save himself, and three animals who survived the shipwreck, the captain's dog and two cats. Having overcome his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a fenced-in habitation near a cave which he excavates himself. He keeps a calendar by making marks in a wooden cross built by himself, hunts, grows corn and rice, dries grapes to make raisins for the winter months, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood which he harvests on the island and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society.

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Years later, he discovers native cannibals who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes that he has no right to do so as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion Friday after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity. After another party of natives arrives to partake in a cannibal feast, Crusoe and Friday manage to kill most of the natives and save two of the prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return with Friday's father to the mainland and bring back the others, build a ship and sail to a Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; mutineers have taken control of the ship and intend to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which he helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, whereupon they intend to leave the worst of the mutineers on the island. Before they leave for England, Crusoe shows the former mutineers how he lived on the island and states that there will be more men coming. Crusoe leaves the island December 19, 1686 and arrives in England on June 11, 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead and there was nothing in his father's will for him. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him a large amount of wealth. In conclusion, he takes his wealth overland to England to avoid traveling at sea. Friday comes with him and along the way they endure one last adventure together as they fight off hundreds of famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees.

Major thematic questions


What is the role of Providence in human life? Do human beings shape their own destinies, as Crusoe seems to do through much of the narrative, or are we primarily acted upon, as Crusoe also is? To what extent are we actually, as Crusoe fancies himself to be, "masters of our own business?" Although the novel concludes with pious thanksgivings to the benevolence of divine providence, readers are keenly aware that Crusoe has done much to shape his own ends. Does Crusoe's ingenuity and selfreliance "give the lie" to his protestations that all deliverance comes from the hand of God alone-or is this dichotomy a false one? What does it mean to be civilized? Crusoe entertains many fears throughout the narrative regarding the "savages," whom he regards (in the mainexceptions can be found, but they tend only to prove the rule) as "sub-Humane." Yet what is the dividing line between the cannibalism of the savages and the slavery in which Crusoe is engaged before his exile-and to some extent, considering his relationship to Friday, after? What does it say about "civilization" that Friday, once exposed to it, goes on to kill more of his own people than Crusoe does, and, in the novel's final major episode, to jocularly torment a bear for his "superiors'" amusement before shooting and killing it? Does humanity belong in Paradise? Crusoe is depicted, time after time, as another Adam in a primordial garden: exercising dominion over the local wild animals, for instance, and tilling the soil to make a living for himself. He is like Adam in other senses, however, the most obvious being his pride. It is pride, Crusoe freely confesses, that drove him to disregard his father's advice and to leave Hull in search of adventure at sea; but is it not also pride that leads him to "civilize" Friday (this writer's term, not Defoe's) and to become the self-styled "Monarch" and "Governour" of the island he regards as "his"-to become the "Deliverer" and "Saviour" of Friday, the Spaniard, and the crew of the mutinied sailing vessel near the book's end? From time to time, the idea of a felix culpa has appeared within theology and philosophy; that is, the notion that humanity needed to leave the garden in order to mature and develop. If the product of such a fall, however, is, arguably, a prideful imperialist like Crusoe, is such a "happy fall" reason for celebration or mourning?

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CAPITALISM, COLONIALISM, AND IMPERIALISM


In order to keep expanding, capitalism requires a cheap source of raw materials and markets for finished products. Colonies serve both functions for the mother country. So though capitalism and colonialism are not identical, they are closely associated. In the eighteenth and the nineteenth century, colonialism and imperialism were generally synonymous; today the terms are still often interchanged, though they are not truly identical. In colonialism, one nation controls the territory, the economy, and the political structure of another country; in imperialism, one nation extends its empire or its dominion over another nation. Thus, colonialism is one form that imperialism may take in extending its domination of other lands; today, however, imperialism is more likely to consist of a wealthy, powerful nation coercing or threatening weak or poor nations to control them politically and/or economically. Crusoe acts as a colonizer in assuming complete dominion over the island and any people he encounters. The land and all its products belong to him. Several times he notes the abundance of trees suitable for making masts (the British navy and merchant ships looked to the American colonies to meet their need for trees to make masts). Crusoe's actions as an individual duplicate those of nations in claiming land for colonies. When Crusoe leaves the island, he leaves behind English and Spanish sailors as colonists. An absence of years does not diminish his ownership. The chapter which narrates his return to the island is titled "I Revisit My Island" (italics added for emphasis). He visits "my" colony on the island (298) and gives some land to the Europeans, keeping title to the whole island for himself. In return, they agree not to leave the island (do they have any choice, since Crusoe has the only boat?). As an embryo imperialist, Crusoe sees himself as king and others as his subjects, including his pets. He creates, not a democracy, not a republic, but a kingdom He imposes his will on others, most obviously Friday, but also on the worst of the English mutineers, whom he forces into staying on the island. For James Joyce, Robinson Crusoe is "prophetic," forecasting English imperialism: The true symbol of British conquest is Robinson Crusoe, who, cast away on a desert island, in his pocket a knife and a pipe, becomes an architect, a carpenter, a knife grinder, an astronomer, a baker, a shipwright, a potter, a saddler, a farmer, a tailor, an umbrella-maker, and a clergyman. He is the true prototype of the British colonist, as Friday (the trusty slave who arrives on an unlucky day) is the symbol of the subject races. The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence; the unconscious cruelty; the persistence; the slow yet efficient intelligence; the sexual apathy; the practical, well-balanced religiousness; the calculating taciturnity.

Characters
Robinson Crusoe: is the titular protagonist, the narrator, and the main character-indeed, for the bulk of the book, the only character-of Defoe's novel. Crusoe styles himself as a rebellious and disobedient youth who, against the advice of several caring adults, including his father, pursued the seafaring, adventurous life over the comfort of the middle class. Although his voyages early in life led to his prosperity as a Brazilian planter (and, as customary in the eighteenth century, slave-owner), his pride, as he sees it, ultimately leads to his more than two-decade long exile on an island. During these years of isolation, Crusoe proves himself to be industrial, ingenious and resourceful as he forges his new life, often by sheer force of will. He also, however, reveals that he has not completely abandoned the pride of his former life when he repeatedly thinks of himself as "King" and "Sovereign" over his island-and over those who eventually join him in it: "his man Friday," the savage, and the Spaniard sailor and his crew. Readers are left wondering whether Crusoe's experience has, in the end, fundamentally changed him-after all, after some years back in civilized lands, Crusoe again sets forth to sea, concluding his first narrative by suggesting that he will write a second, full of "very surprising Incidents." Crusoe has become a powerful and iconic character in the English literary tradition; in fact, his very name has been given to a genre dubbed the "robinsonade": "romances of solitary survival in such inimical terrains as desert islands. [T]he fundamental thrust of the robinsonade-its convincing celebration of the power of pragmatic Reason, and its depiction of the triumph, over great odds, of the entrepreneur who commands that rational Faculty-continues to drive most of its offspring," even as it animates the character of Crusoe in the genre's taproot text (John Clute and Peter Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995], p. 1017). Friday: is the "savage" inhabitant of the mainland opposite Crusoe's island who arrives there as a prisoner of his fellow "savages," brought to be slaughtered in a cannibalistic ritual. Crusoe delivers Friday from this fate, and

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Friday professes undying gratitude and loyalty. Crusoe comes to regard the man and to depend upon him as "my man Friday." Like Crusoe, Friday has become an iconic character, whose very name is a byword for a "right hand man" (or woman, as in the title of the 1940 film His Girl Friday). He typifies the Western intellectual tradition's conceit of the "noble savage"-who, despite his "uncivilized" and "barbarous" ways, is a good, lofty spirit (seen, for example, in Friday's affection for his father), lacking only direction from a more "civilized" and advanced instructor. One of the startling effects to modern readers, however, of Crusoe's "civilization" of Friday is the fact that Friday begins to demonstrate some of the same less-than-desirable attitudes and actions of Crusoe. This process reaches its fullest development in Friday's taunting treatment of the bear in the novel's final pages, laughing at the animal and even making it dance before he dispatches it with a gunshot. Friday's character and the way in which Crusoe shapes it thus raise questions about the true nature of "savagery" and "civilization" for the readers of Robinson Crusoe. Although other, supporting characters also populate this novel's pages-Crusoe's father, the ship captain under whom Crusoe first sails, the Spaniard ship captain and his mutinous crew, Crusoe's widowed sisters, Friday's father-they remain two-dimensional at best. The only other compelling and ambiguous character in the novel is, in fact, Providence-that is to say, God. The novel is, as its preface announces, an extended meditation upon the workings of Providence, which Crusoe at times (and in the final analysis) regards as benevolent; but which at other times-for example, in moments of despair such as the loss of his canoe-he regards as anything but. Enough dissonance reverberates through the text that readers are left to conclude for themselves whether God as a character in Robinson Crusoe is beneficent or not.

INTERESTING QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS


1. How does Robinson Crusoe's conversation with his father at the beginning of the book relate to the novel's overarching concern with "providence" or fate? Crusoe's conversation with his father introduces the question of whether one should be content with one's given lot in life. Although the bourgeois would not emerge as the predominant social class until the mid- to late-19th century, Defoe's work is clearly preoccupied with the middle class' station, influence, and privilege. Crusoe's father attempts to impress upon him the advantages of being born into the middle class' relatively comfortable existence. Crusoe, however, by his own admission, is driven by a compulsion to seek adventure; not even the unfortunate case of his elder brother, who was killed in "the Low Country Wars" (that is, conflicts in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), can dissuade Crusoe from going to sea. And although the narrator insists throughout the text that his decision to do so was a mistake-note, for instance, the many occasions on which Crusoe bewails the "evil influence which carried me first away from my Father's House"-readers may justly wonder how seriously this judgment should be received. After all, were it not for that "evil influence," neither Crusoe nor, of course, his creator Defoe would have a tale to tell! This conversation thus poses the question of whether a safe and comfortable life (such as that open the socio-economic stratum in which Crusoe was born) is, in fact, to be preferred to a life in which, for good or for ill, one is the maker of one's own fortune (both economic and otherwise). Throughout the rest of the novel, we will see Crusoe making his own life-especially, of course, on the island-and our ultimate impression of who is "in the right" in this exchange between Crusoe and his father will depend on how we judge the life that Crusoe establishes, and the character that he becomes. 2. How is Crusoe's shipwreck upon the island a "baptismal" experience? How does this symbolism connect with larger thematic concerns of the novel? The symbolic value of water in the section about the shipwreck should not be overlooked. As Thomas C. Foster points out, in literature, "weather is never just weather." The sea storms may be taken (whether Defoe intended them as such or not) as symbols of the "storms" within Crusoe, as he knows he is undertaking a voyage he does not need to undertake. Furthermore, the vividly described shipwreck scene itself evokes baptismal imagery and associations; as Foster claims about water in literature, submersion and emergence generally points to baptism-not necessarily the literal Christian sacrament, but rather the experience of rebirth to which it points. Crusoe himself speaks more than once of his emergence from the sea onto the island as his "Deliverance," a word with religious and baptismal overtones. He states, "I was now landed, and safe on Shore, and began to look up and thank God that my Life was saved." Readers are thus prepared to see how, if at all, Crusoe has been "reborn" through his "baptism" in the hurricane. He has been delivered from death through water. How will he shape-or how will he be shaped by-his "new" life? The rest of the novel explores the answers to these questions.

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3. Before his shipwreck, Crusoe has the services of a boy named Xury; afterward, he has the services of "my man Friday." Before his shipwreck, Crusoe had an estranged relationship with his father; afterward, he witnesses the affectionate reunion of Friday with Friday's father. How do these parallels develop the thematic concerns of Robinson Crusoe? The parallels are certainly not accidental. The first parallel, between Xury and Friday, may serve to establish that Crusoe does not actually change much as a character throughout the course of the book (in this writer's judgmentother readers may of course disagree!). Crusoe professes affection for both Xury and Friday, but ultimately seems to value them both only in a utilitarian way: how can they serve him? The parallel between Crusoe's failed relationship to his father and Friday's loving relationship to his may further point out the negative character flaws of Crusoe. The Puritan society in which Defoe wrote his text would have valued the biblical injunction to "honor thy father and mother," and Crusoe broke this commandment in leaving Hull to seek adventure at sea. Crusoe acknowledges this, of course-during much of his exile, he regards his isolation as punishment for this prideful sin-but he is prevented from making amends with his father because his father has died by the time he, Crusoe, returns to England. Friday, on the other hand, has never become estranged from his father. For all his supposed "savagery," then, Friday has achieved something the "civilized" Crusoe has not: a continued, close, affectionate relationship with his father. 4. Discuss the significance of Crusoe's discovery of another human's footprint in terms of the novel's larger thematic concerns The discovery of the footprint is one of the most dramatic turn of events in Crusoe's narrative, and it serves as the occasion for some further reflections upon Crusoe's situation and life. For example, note how Crusoe speaks of returning to his "Castle, for so I think I called it ever after this," upon discovering the footprint. We have seen before how Crusoe has fancied himself as monarch of the island; now, however, such terminology as "castle" acquires an ironic edge: if he is not alone on the island, he is perhaps not the "sovereign" he imagines himself to be. Furthermore, we see illustrated in Crusoe's reactions how, in his own words, "Fear banishes all religious Hope." Since Crusoe's faith in the benign nature of Providence will be strengthened by the end of this segment of the text, we can perhaps take the incident as a narrative homily on 1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." Once Crusoe comes to a fuller "love," or at the least trust, in God's goodness by the end of this section, he no longer fears the maker of the footprint-at least not as much as he initially did! We also learn from Crusoe how fear is the enemy of reason, and watch Crusoe struggle to bring reason to bear to the situation-possibly a struggle we can construe as his continued assertion of "civilization" in the face of "savagery"-or "humane" versus "inhumane," to use Crusoe's own terms-a recurring thematic dichotomy in the text. 5. Is the Christian faith a positive or negative force within Robinson Crusoe? Although Christian faith helps Crusoe through many difficult and dark hours on the island, the text also provides evidence that the same faith has a potentially darker edge. Note how, for example, Crusoe continues to see himself explicitly as an agent of God: "I would only go and place my self near them and that I would act as God should direct." As another example, note that Crusoe shares bread and wine with the freed Spaniard-perhaps a parody of the Christian Eucharist (Mass). Religion, as students of history are aware, can be a savage force in its service of "civilization," and readers of Crusoe's narrative must determine the extent to which the protagonist truly sees himself as acting "in the Name of God"-the phrase may be far more than a casual turn of speech, and far more dangerous: Readers will not fail to note the triumphant language Crusoe uses to describe his situation once all the prisoners have been freed: "I was absolute Lord and Lawgiver: they all owed their Lives to me." Crusoe-once more, as Adam before him-is committing the sin of hubris. He has replaced God in his own eyes. Perhaps most telling is the point at which Crusoe claims he has "set a Table there for them"-direct and seemingly inescapable, allusions to his own earlier, more humble acknowledgment that only God can "set a table in the wilderness." Upon undertaking the mission to liberate the other Spaniards, Crusoe takes on the aspect of some sort of avenger, reserving to himself the right to mete out life and death. Is he the picture of a civilized man? Whether Defoe intended his text to be interpreted in this skeptical way, the raw materials for such a reading are present and ought not be ignored.

Racist Misinterpretations in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe


The novel Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, brings into light many ideologies surrounding slavery and racism in the British Empire during the eighteenth century. In several instances throughout the book Crusoe encounters things involving slavery or the native "other," for example accepting the position as captain of a slaving ship or his relationship with Friday both on his island and afterwards, and how he handles these interactions gives rise to much controversy. Crusoe's first intimate interaction with an African or Native American in the novel occurs ironically when he is escaping his own enslavement from the Moors in Africa. The boy, Xury, that assists and

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accompanies Crusoe in his escape from slavery, represents the model of which Crusoe, and on a larger scale the English population in its entirety, believed the native "other" should be interacted with and how their actions were (mis)interpreted. Crusoe's first mention of Xury occurs after Crusoe has thrown the other Moor on the ship overboard. Crusoe states that "I could ha' been content to ha' taken this Moor with me, and ha' drown'd the Boy, but there was no venturing to trust him" (23). Crusoe quite frankly states here that there is nothing particularly special or redeeming about Xury for which he has spared his life, other than the fact that he is younger than the other Moor had been and therefore seems more pliable. To Crusoe, Xury is completely interchangeable with any other African that may have been on board his boat during his escape. Xury's individuality or uniqueness as a human being is initially disregarded by Crusoe, leading the reader to believe this individuality may be nonexistent, and Crusoe's continual ignorance of Xury's uniqueness supports this misconception.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pirates is a 1724 book published in Britain, containing biographies of contemporary pirates. Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, it is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates. Its author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered a pseudonym.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 at Land port, England, where his father was the clerk in the navy pay office. The family moved to London in 1815 and later to Chatham. During this time, Dickens was exceptionally happy, but in 1823, they returned to London with their fortunes severely impaired. His father then was imprisoned because of debt, so Dickens was removed from school and forced to work as a clerk in a blacking warehouse of one of his relatives. When their financial situation improved however, he went back to school until he left again at 15. He began his literary career in 1833 when he was 21 years old by publishing his stories in newspapers and magazines. In 1836, he began doing serial publications first with Pickwick Papers and then Oliver Twist. In April of that year, he married Catherine Hogarth and later became the father of ten children by her. Since it was profitable and enjoyable, Dickens continued to publish his work in weekly installments or monthly parts depending on the publication. Between 1836 and 1870, Dickens wrote historical fiction novels, Christmas books, a travel guide, his observations on America, and essays. In 1856, he moved to his country home in Gad's Hill and in 1858 was separated from him wife. His last completed novel was published in 1864-1865 and Dickens died on June 9, 1870. He left one book unfinished.

About Great Expectations


When Dickens started his thirteenth novel, Great Expectations, in 1860, he was already a national hero. He had come from humble beginnings, working as a child in a shoe polish factory while his family was in debtor's prison, to become the quintessential Victorian gentleman. He was involved in all aspects of English life: writing, acting, producing, going on book tours, publishing magazines, and, as always, active in social welfare and criticism. Amidst all this, however, Dickens' private life had entered a dark period. Dickens had just separated from his wife two years earlier, there were rumors of an affair with a young actress in the newspapers, and he was spending more and more time at his home in Chatham. Dickens himself had risen to achieve greater expectations than any clerk's boy could expect, but he had not found happiness. The idea that one must search beyond material, wealth and social standings and look within themselves for happiness, becomes the major theme in Great Expectations. Some time in 1860, Dickens had started a piece that he found funny and truthful and thought it might do better as a novel: "...it so opens out before me that I can see the whole of a serial revolving on it, in a most singular and comic manner," he wrote. Dickens had told friends that he had gone back and read David Copperfield and was quite struck by the story now that he looked back upon it. Copperfield was a happy novel, the story of a young man who came into his fortune though hard work and luck. Its influences and similarities are seen in Great Expectations. There are, however, some major thematic differences. Though not considered as autobiographical as David Copperfield which he had published some ten years earlier, the character of Pip represented a Dickens who had learned some hard lessons in his later life. Especially strong throughout the novel are the concepts of fraternal and romantic love, how society thwarts them, how a man should find them. For financial reasons, Dickens had to shorten the novel, making it one of his tighter and better written stories. It was published in serial form, as were all of his novels, and the reader can still see the rhythm of suspense and resolution every couple of chapters that kept all of England waiting for the next issue. Though a dark novel, Great Expectations was deliberately more humorous than its predecessor A Tale of Two Cities, and even while it presented Dickens' ever present social critique, it did so in a way that made people laugh. The greatest difference between Great Expectations and Dickens' earlier novels is the introduction of dramatic psychological transformations within the lead characters, as opposed to characters that are changed only through their circumstances and surroundings. The story of Pip is a Bildungsroman -- a story that centers on the education or development of the protagonist -- and we can follow closely the things that Pip learns and then has to unlearn.

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All in all, Great Expectations is considered the best balanced of all of Dickens' novels, though a controversy still persists over the ending. Dickens had originally written an ending where Pip and Estella never get back together. Many critics, including George Bernard Shaw, believe that this rather depressing ending was more consistent with the overall theme and tone of the novel, which began, continued, and perhaps should have finished with a serious, unhappy note. Nevertheless, Dickens published the ending where all is forgiven and Estella and Pip walk out of the Satis House garden together. It was, perhaps, an ending that Dickens would have like to have had for his own life. Dickens published one more novel, Our Mutual Friend, before dying in 1870.

Great Expectations Summary


Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith's family, who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and his expectations. Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find happiness. He learns the meaning of friendship and the meaning of love and, of course, becomes a better person for it. The story opens with the narrator, Pip, who introduces himself and describes a much younger Pip staring at the gravestones of his parents. This tiny, shivering bundle of a boy is suddenly terrified by a man dressed in a prison uniform. The man tells Pip that if he wants to live, he'll go down to his house and bring him back some food and a file for the shackle on his leg. Pip runs home to his sister, Mrs. Joe Gragery, and his adoptive father, Joe Gragery. Mrs. Joe is a loud, angry, nagging woman who constantly reminds Pip and her husband Joe of the difficulties she has gone through to raise Pip and take care of the house. Pip finds solace from these rages in Joe, who is more his equal than a paternal figure, and they are united under a common oppression. Pip steals food and a pork pie from the pantry shelf and a file from Joe's forge and brings them back to the escaped convict the next morning. Soon thereafter, Pip watches the man get caught by soldiers and the whole event soon disappears from his young mind. Mrs. Joe comes home one evening, quite excited, and proclaims that Pip is going to "play" for Miss Havisham, "a rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house." Pip is brought to Miss Havisham's place, a mansion called the "Satis House," where sunshine never enters. He meets a girl about his age, Estella, "who was very pretty and seemed very proud." Pip instantly falls in love with her and will love her rest of the story. He then meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed old woman dressed in an old wedding gown. Miss Havisham seems most happy when Estella insults Pip's coarse hands and his thick boots as they play. Pip is insulted, but thinks there is something wrong with him. He vows to change, to become uncommon, and to become a gentleman. Pip continues to visit Estella and Miss Havisham for eight months and learns more about their strange life. Miss Havisham brings him into a great banquet hall where a table is set with food and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake are years old, untouched except by a vast array of rats, beetles and spiders which crawl freely through the room. Her relatives all come to see her on the same day of the year: her birthday and wedding day, the day when the cake was set out and the clocks were stopped many years before; i.e. the day Miss Havisham stopped living. Pip begins to dream what life would be like if he were a gentleman and wealthy. This dream ends when Miss Havisham asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her, in order that he may start his indenture as a blacksmith. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty five pounds for Pip's service to her and says good-bye. Pip explains his misery to his readers: he is ashamed of his home, ashamed of his trade. He wants to be uncommon; he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a part of the environment that he had a small taste of at the Manor House. Early in his indenture, Mrs. Joe is found lying unconscious, knocked senseless by some unknown assailant. She has suffered some serious brain damage, having lost much of voice, her hearing, and her memory. Furthermore, her

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"temper was greatly improved, and she was patient." To help with the housework and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy, a young orphan friend of Pip's, moves into the house. The years pass quickly. It is the fourth year of Pip's apprenticeship and he is sitting with Joe at the pub when they are approached by a stranger. Pip recognizes him, and his "smell of soap," as a man he had once run into at Miss Havisham's house years before. Back at the house, the man, Jaggers, explains that Pip now has "great expectations." He is to be given a large monthly stipend, administered by Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor, however, does not want to be known and is to remain a mystery. Pip spends an uncomfortable evening with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed. There, despite having all his dreams come true, he finds himself feeling very lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham who hints subtly that she is his unknown sponsor. Pip goes to live in London and meets Wemmick, Jagger's square-mouth clerk. Wemmick brings Pip to Bernard's Inn, where Pip will live for the next five years with Matthew Pocket's son Herbert, a cheerful young gentleman that becomes one of Pip's best friends. From Herbert, Pips finds out that Miss Havisham adopted Estella and raised her to wreak revenge on the male gender by making them fall in love with her, and then breaking their hearts. Pip is invited to dinner at Wemmick's whose slogan seems to be "Office is one thing, private life is another." Indeed, Wemmick has a fantastical private life. Although he lives in a small cottage, the cottage has been modified to look a bit like a castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, and firing cannon. The next day, Jaggers himself invites Pip and friends to dinner. Pip, on Wemmick's suggestion, looks carefully at Jagger's servant woman -- a "tigress" according to Wemmick. She is about forty, and seems to regard Jaggers with a mix of fear and duty. Pip journeys back to the Satis House to see Miss Havisham and Estella, who is now older and so much more beautiful that he doesn't recognize her at first. Facing her now, he slips back "into the coarse and common voice" of his youth and she, in return, treats him like the boy he used to be. Pip sees something strikingly familiar in Estella's face. He can't quite place the look, but an expression on her face reminds him of someone. Pip stays away from Joe and Biddy's house and the forge, but walks around town, enjoying the admiring looks he gets from his past neighbors. Soon thereafter, a letter for Pip announces the death of Mrs. Joe Gragery. Pip returns home again to attend the funeral. Later, Joe and Pip sit comfortably by the fire like times of old. Biddy insinuates that Pip will not be returning soon as he promises and he leaves insulted. Back in London, Pip asks Wemmick for advice on how to give Herbert some of his yearly stipend anonymously. Narrator Pip describes his relationship to Estella while she lived in the city: "I suffered every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me," he says. Pip finds out that Drummle, the most repulsive of his acquaintances, has begun courting Estella. Years go by and Pip is still living the same wasteful life of a wealthy young man in the city. A rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pip's home on a stormy night soon after Pip's twenty-fourth birthday. Pip invites him in, treats him with courteous disdain, but then begins to recognize him as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he was a child. The man, Magwitch, reveals that he is Pip's benefactor. Since the day that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every cent he earned would go to Pip. "I've made a gentleman out of you," the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his expectations are demolished. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to make Pip happy and rich, living in harmonious marriage to Estella. The convict tells Pip that he has come back to see him under threat of his life, since the law will execute him if they find him in England. Pip is disgusted with him, but wants to protect him and make sure he isn't found and put to death. Herbert and Pip decide that Pip will try and convince Magwitch to leave England with him. Magwitch tells them the story of his life. From a very young age, he was alone and got into trouble. In one of his brief stints actually out of jail, Magwitch met a young well-to-do gentleman named Compeyson who had his hand in everything illegal: swindling, forgery, and other white collar crime. Compeyson recruited Magwitch to do his dirty work and landed Magwitch into trouble with the law. Magwitch hates the man. Herbert passes a note to Pip telling him that Compeyson was the name of the man who left Miss Havisham on her wedding day. Pip goes back to Satis House and finds Miss Havisham and Estella in the same banquet room. Pip breaks down and confesses his love for Estella. Estella tells him straight that she is incapable of love -- she has warned him of as much before -- and she will soon be married to Drummle. Back in London, Wemmick tells Pip things he has learned from the prisoners at Newgate. Pip is being watched, he says, and may be in some danger. As well, Compeyson has made his presence known in London. Wemmick has already warned Herbert as well. Heeding the warning, Herbert has hidden Magwitch in his fianc Clara's house.

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Pip has dinner with Jaggers and Wemmick at Jaggers' home. During the dinner, Pip finally realizes the similarities between Estella and Jaggers' servant woman. Jaggers' servant woman is Estella's mother! On their way home together, Wemmick tells the story of Jaggers' servant woman. It was Jaggers' first big breakthrough case, the case that made him. He was defending this woman in a case where she was accused of killing another woman by strangulation. The woman was also said to have killed her own child, a girl, at about the same time as the murder. Miss Havisham asks Pip to come visit her. He finds her again sitting by the fire, but this time she looks very lonely. Pip tells her how he was giving some of his money to help Herbert with his future, but now must stop since he himself is no longer taking money from his benefactor. Miss Havisham wants to help, and she gives Pip nine hundred pounds to help Herbert out. She then asks Pip for forgiveness. Pip tells her she is already forgiven and that he needs too much forgiving himself not to be able to forgive others. Pip goes for a walk around the garden then comes back to find Miss Havisham on fire! Pip puts the fire out, burning himself badly in the process. The doctors come and announce that she will live. Pip goes home and Herbert takes care of his burns. Herbert has been spending some time with Magwitch at Clara's and has been told the whole Magwitch story. Magwitch was the husband of Jaggers' servant woman, the Tigress. The woman had come to Magwitch on the day she murdered the other woman and told him she was going to kill their child and that Magwitch would never see her. And Magwitch never did. Pip puts is all together and tells Herbert that Magwitch is Estella's father. It is time to escape with Magwitch. Herbert and Pip get up the next morning and start rowing down the river, picking up Magwitch at the preappointed time. They are within a few feet of a steamer that they hope to board when another boat pulls alongside to stop them. In the confusion, Pip sees Compeyson leading the other boat, but the steamer is on top of them. The steamer crushes Pip's boat, Compeyson and Magwitch disappear under water, and Pip and Herbert find themselves in a police boat of sorts. Magwitch finally comes up from the water. He and Compeyson wrestled for a while, but Magwitch had let him go and he is presumably drowned. Once again, Magwitch is shackled and arrested. Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. Pip attends to the ailing Magwitch daily in prison. Pip whispers to him one day that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive. "She is a lady and very beautiful," Pip says. "And I love her." Magwitch gives up the ghost. Pip falls into a fever for nearly a month. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his dreams and his reality. Finally, he regains his senses and sees that, indeed, Joe has been there the whole time, nursing him back to health. Joe tells him that Miss Havisham died during his illness, that she left Estella nearly all, and Matthew Pocket a great deal. Joe slips away one morning leaving only a note. Pip discovers that Joe has paid off all his debtors. Pip is committed to returning to Joe, asking for forgiveness for everything he has done, and to ask Biddy to marry him. Pip goes to Joe and indeed finds happiness -- but the happiness is Joe and Biddy's. It is their wedding day. Pip wishes them well, truly, and asks them for their forgiveness in all his actions. They happily give it. Pip goes to work for Herbert's' firm and lives with the now married Clara and Herbert. Within a year, he becomes a partner. He pays off his debts and works hard. Eleven years later, Pip returns from his work overseas. He visits Joe and Biddy and meets their son, a little Pip, sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did years ago. Pip tells Biddy that he is quite the settled old bachelor, living with Clara and Herbert and he thinks he will never marry. Nevertheless, he goes to the Satis House that night to think once again of the girl who got away. And there he meets Estella. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. She tells Pip that she has learned the feeling of heartbreak the hard way and now seeks his forgiveness for what she did to him. The two walk out of the garden hand in hand, and Pip "saw the shadow of no parting from her."

THEMES
Ambition and Self-Improvement The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvementideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pips development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral

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shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how. Pips desire for selfimprovement is the main source of the novels title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has great expectations about his future. Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectationsmoral, social, and educational; these motivate Pips best and his worst behavior throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class, and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel; it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature. Significantly, Pips life as a gentleman is no more satisfyingand certainly no more moralthan his previous life as a blacksmiths apprentice. Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman. As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr. Wopsles aunts school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to ones real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing. Social Class Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novels plot and to the ultimate moral theme of the bookPips realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, ones social status is in no way connected to ones real character. Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout, while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novels treatment of social class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary aristocracy in favor of characters whose fortunes have been earned through commerce. Even Miss Havishams family fortune was made through the brewery that is still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novels overarching theme of ambition and self-improvement. Crime, Guilt, and Innocence The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pips inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice system. In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has discovered Magwitchs inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitchs inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one.

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Motifs Doubles-EXAM
One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickenss work is its structural intricacy and remarkable balance. Dickenss plots involve complicated coincidences, extraordinarily tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused. In Great Expectations,perhaps the most visible sign of Dickenss commitment to intricate dramatic symmetry apart from the knot of character relationships, of courseis the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on. There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch, who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitchs action by secretly buying Herberts way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to own a gentleman and decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break mens hearts in revenge for her own broken heart. Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but is nonetheless covetous of Compeysons social status and education, which motivates his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havishams heart was broken when Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and Compeysona well-born woman and a common manfurther mirrors the relationship between Estella and Pip. This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novels main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that everything in Pips world is connected. Throughout Dickenss works, this kind of dramatic symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe. Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to describe the physical appearance of charactersparticularly minor characters, or characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are repeatedly compared to a letter-box. This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrators part, or it may suggest that the characters position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal justice system dehumanizes certain people.

Symbols
Satis House In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements symbolize Pips romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the book. On her decaying body, Miss Havishams wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havishams past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havishams fortune is not the product of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism. Finally, the crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the upper class as a whole. The Mists on the Marshes The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets a tone that is perfectly matched to the novels dramatic action. The misty marshes near Pips childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the books settings, are used several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty. As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them. Whenever

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Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen. Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his life may have dangerous consequences. Bentley Drummle Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. In his mind, Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class, provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while Pips friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns. Drummles negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and class in favor of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more realistic.

CHARACTERS
Pip: The main character and narrator of the novel, Pip is a man that all through his young life tries to better himself because he is ashamed of who he is, and where he came from. When fortune falls in his lap, Pip is forced to realize that money does not make you happy, and that it cannot buy what he wants most, Estella's love. Joe: Pip's brother-in-law and father figure, Joe is the blacksmith with which Pip grew up. Though they are best friends and love each other, Joe represents all that Pip does not want out of his life, and so he pulls away from him as soon as fortune strikes. Mrs. Joe: A tyrannical sister and mother figure, Mrs. Joe raised Pip from the time his parents died when he was a baby until her accident. Abusive and prone to "rampages" of her temper, she appeared in the beginning to be an almost uncaring but authoritative figure. Uncle Pumblechook: Joe's uncle who got Pip the job with Miss Havisham. Because of this, he looked at himself as Pip's real benefactor and when Pip came into wealth he wanted to use him for his own purposes. Biddy: Soft and sweet, Biddy was always one of Pip's best friends. When they were little, Biddy taught him all that she knew in school, and as they grew older she began to teach herself along with her. After she moves into his house and few years pass, and Pip wishes that he could love Biddy but never really does. Miss Havisham: A woman with a severely broken heart, she lives her life as if time stopped at twenty minutes to nine and daylight does not exist. Her only tender emotions she reserves for her adopted daughter Estella who she raises to break men's hearts. Pip becomes a toy to her and a boy for Estella to practice on. Estella: Raised with a woman scorned and in a house where no daylight shined, Estella is a beautiful girl with an insensitive personality that enjoyed making Pip cry. As they get older, the only feeling that she shows is in her concern for Pip by telling him that he is warned. Raised to never feel love, Estella seems an empty shell of a person. Herbert: A young man with many dreams and aspirations, Herbert at first appears to have his head in the clouds. Even though at their first meeting as boys Herbert wanted to fight him, he is kind and trustworthy. When Pip comes into fortune, Herbert becomes his best friend and beloved confidant. After working with him Pip realizes, that his is an exceptionally hard worker and not just a dreamer. Matthew Pocket: Miss Havisham's cousin who is the only one in his family not after her fortune. After a fight long ago when he was trying to protect her from being hurt, Miss Havisham kicks him out of her house, and he never returns. In the end Miss Havisham leaves all of her money to him because he is the only one who ever truly cared for her happiness. Matthew is an intelligent man and a kind friend and teacher to Pip.

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Mr. Jaggers: The universal lawyer, Mr. Jaggers is a hard man who shows very little emotion. He bases his life on reason and fact. Pips guardian from when he leaves home till he reaches his majority, Jaggers handles Pips fortune and advises him when necessary. Wemmick: A clerk for Mr. Jaggers, at work Wemmick appears to have no feelings. When Pip visits him at home however he is an entirely different person to whom Pip will go to for advice or companionship. Wemmick takes care of his hearing impaired father, and in the end marries a woman, Miss Skiffins. His tiny house is his castle, and everything he has of value is "portable property."

A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.

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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE


Comedy of manners is a comedy satirizing the attitudes and behavior of a particular social group, often of fashionable society.
Jane Austen was born at Steventon Parsonage, Hampshire, England on December 16, 1775. The seventh of eight children, she was educated by her minister-father and the Abbey School in Reading, England. The first twenty-six years of her life were spent in the rectory, but in 1801, the family moved to Bath in hopes of restoring her father's health. In 1805, upon his death, they moved to Southampton, and then to Chawton, Hampshire in 1809. Austen's novels incorporate her observations on the manners of her time and class, and while they often relate courtship, love, and marriage, Austen herself never married. Austen began her literary career by writing parodies and sketches for her family, some of which survive today. Pride and Prejudice was first published in 1813, and is the second of Austen's novels. Her other novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma, (1816), Persuasion (1818), and Northanger Abbey (1818). Also surviving are a few novel beginnings, some verse, some prayers, and many letters. Jane Austen died at the age of forty-two on July 18, 1817 in Winchester, England of what historians now believe to have been Addison's disease.

About Pride and Prejudice


Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, is Jane's Austen's earliest work, and in some senses also one of her most mature works. Austen began writing the novel in 1796 at the age of twenty-one, under the title First Impressions. The original version of the novel was probably in the form of an exchange of letters. Austen's father had offered he manuscript for publication in 1797, but the publishing company refused to even consider it. Shortly after completing First Impressions, Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility, which was not published until 1811. She also wrote some minor works during that time, which were later expanded into full novels. Between 1810 and 1812 Pride and Prejudice was rewritten for publication. While the original ideas of the novel come from a girl of 21, the final version has the literary and thematic maturity of a thirty-five year old woman who has spent years painstakingly drafting and revising, as is the pattern with all of Austen's works. Pride and Prejudice is usually considered to be the most popular of Austen's novels.

Pride and Prejudice Summary


Pride and Prejudice is set primarily in the county of Hertfordshire, about 50 miles outside of London. The novel opens at with a conversation at Longbourn, the Bennet's estate, about the arrival of Mr. Bingley, "a single man of large fortune," to Netherfield Park, a nearby estate. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find husbands for her daughters, sees Mr. Bingley as a potential suitor. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five children: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. The Bennets' first acquaintance with Mr. Bingley and his companions is at the Meryton Ball. Mr. Bingley takes a liking to Jane and is judged by the townspeople to be perfectly amiable and agreeable. Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy, however, snubs Elizabeth and is considered to be proud and disagreeable because of his reserve and his refusal to dance. Bingley's sisters are judged to be amiable by Jane but Elizabeth finds them to be arrogant. After further interactions, it becomes evident that Jane and Bingley have a preference for one another, although Bingley's partiality is more obvious than Jane's because she is universally cheerful and amiable. Charlotte Lucas, a close friend of Elizabeth with more pragmatic views on marriage, recommends that Jane make her regard for Bingley more obvious. At the same time, Mr. Darcy begins to admire Elizabeth, captivated by her fine eyes and lively wit. When Jane is invited for dinner at Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet refuses to provide her with a carriage, hoping that because it is supposed to rain Jane will be forced to spend the night. However, because Jane gets caught in the rain, she falls ill and is forced to stay at Netherfield until she recovers. Upon hearing that Jane is ill, Elizabeth walks to Netherfield in order to go nurse her sister. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst (Bingley's sisters) are scandalized that

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Elizabeth walked so far alone in the mud. Seeing that Jane would like Elizabeth to stay with her, Bingley's sisters invite Elizabeth to remain at Netherfield until Jane recovers. During her stay at Netherfield, Elizabeth increasingly gains the admiration of Mr. Darcy. She is blind to his partiality, however, and continues to think him a most proud and haughty man because of the judgment she made of him when he snubbed her at the ball. Miss Bingley, who is obviously trying to gain the admiration of Mr. Darcy, is extremely jealous of Elizabeth and tries to prevent Mr. Darcy from admiring her by making rude references to the poor manners of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters and to her lower class relatives. When Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters come to visit Jane, Elizabeth is mortified by their foolishness and complete lack of manners. Bingley's admiration for Jane continues unabated and is evident in his genuine solicitude for her recovery. After Jane recovers, she returns home with Elizabeth. A militia regiment is stationed at the nearby town of Meryton, where Mrs. Bennet's sisterMrs. Phillips lives. Mrs. Phillips is just as foolish as Mrs. Bennet. Lydia and Kitty love to go to Meryton to visit with their aunt and socialize with the militia's officers. Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet who is in line to inherit Longbourn because the estate has been entailed away from the female line, writes a letter stating his intention to visit. When he arrives, he makes it clear that he hopes to find a suitable wife among the Miss Bennets. Mr. Collins is a clergyman, and his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (who is also Darcy's aunt), has suggested that he find a wife, and he hopes to lessen the hardship of the entailment by marrying one of Mr. Bennet's daughters. Mr. Collins is a silly man who speaks in long, pompous speeches and always has an air of solemn formality. When the Miss Bennets and Mr. Collins go for a walk to Meryton, they are introduced to an officer in the regiment named Mr. Wickham. They also run into Mr. Darcy, and when Darcy and Wickham meet both seem to be extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Wickham immediately shows a partiality for Elizabeth and they speak at length. Wickham tells Elizabeth that the reason for the mutual embarrassment when he and Darcy met is that Darcy's father had promised that Wickham, his godson, should be given a good living after his death, but that Darcy had failed to fulfill his father's dying wishes and had left Wickham to support himself. Elizabeth, already predisposed to think badly of Darcy, does not question Wickham's account. When Elizabeth tells Jane Wickham's story Jane refuses think badly of either Wickham or Darcy and assumes there must be some misunderstanding. As promised, Bingley hosts a ball at Netherfield. He and Jane stay together the whole evening, and their mutual attachment becomes increasingly obvious. Mrs. Bennet speaks of their marriage as imminent over dinner, within earshot of Mr. Bingley's friend Mr. Darcy. Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance with her and she inadvertently accepts. She does not enjoy it and cannot understand why he asked her. Mr. Collins pays particularly close attention to Elizabeth at the ball, and even reserves the first two dances with her. The next day Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She refuses him, and after a while Mr. Collins comes to understand that her refusal is sincere, not just a trick of female coquetry. Mrs. Bennet is extremely angry at Elizabeth for not accepting, but Mr. Bennet is glad. Mr. Collins shifts his attentions to Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas. He proposes to Charlotte and she accepts. Elizabeth is disappointed in her friend for agreeing to marry such a silly man simply to obtain financial security. Bingley goes to London for business and shortly after he leaves his sisters and Darcy go to London as well. He had planned to return quickly to Netherfield, but Caroline Bingley writes to Jane and tells her that Bingley will almost definitely not return for about six months. Caroline also tells Jane that the family hopes Bingley will marry Darcy's younger sister Georgiana and unite the fortunes of the two families. Jane is heartbroken, thinking that Bingley must not really be attached to her. Elizabeth thinks that Darcy and Bingley's sisters somehow managed to convince Bingley to stay in London rather than returning to Netherfield to propose to Jane. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Elizabeth's aunt and uncle, come to Longbourn to visit. They invite Jane to come and spend some time with them in London, hoping that the time away will help to cheer her up. Elizabeth also hopes that Jane will run into Bingley while in London. Mrs. Gardiner, after observing Elizabeth and Wickham together, warns Elizabeth against the imprudence of a marriage to Wickham because of his poor financial situation, and advises Elizabeth not to encourage his attentions so much.

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While in London Jane is treated very rudely by Caroline Bingley and comes to realize that she is not a sincere friend. She assumes that Mr. Bingley knows she is in London, and decides that he must no longer be partial to her since she does not hear from him at all. Wickham suddenly transfers his attentions from Elizabeth to Miss King, who has recently acquired 10,000 pounds from an inheritance. Along with Sir William Lucas and Maria Lucas (Charlotte's father and younger sister) Elizabeth goes to visit Charlotte (now Mrs. Collins) at her new home in Kent. On their way they stop to see the Gardiners. Upon hearing of Wickham's change of affections, Mrs. Gardiner is critical, but Elizabeth defends him. While staying with the Collinses, Elizabeth and the others are often invited to dine at Rosings, the large estate of Mr. Collins' patroness Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine is completely arrogant and domineering. After Elizabeth has been at the Parsonage for a fortnight, Mr. Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam visited Rosings. Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam get along very well. Darcy also seems to be paying a lot of attention to Elizabeth, and often visits her and Charlotte at the Parsonage along with Colonel Fitzwilliam. He also purposely meets her very frequently on her usual walking route through the park. While walking one day with Elizabeth, Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Darcy recently saved a close friend from an imprudent marriage. Elizabeth concludes from this comment that it must have been Darcy's advice which convinced Bingley not to propose to Jane. She becomes so angry and upset that she gets a terrible headache and decides not to go to Rosings for dinner. While she is alone at the Parsonage, Darcy pays a visit. He tells her that in spite of all his efforts to avoid it because of her low family connections, he has fallen in love with her and wants to marry her. Elizabeth is shocked. She rudely refuses and rebukes him for the ungentle manlike manner in which he proposed, as well as for preventing the marriage of Bingley and Jane and for ill-treating Wickham. Darcy is shocked because he had assumed she would accept. The next day Darcy finds Elizabeth and hands her a letter then quickly leaves. The letter contains an explanation of his reasons for advising Bingley not to marry Jane and for his actions toward Wickham. He had prevented Bingley from proposing to Jane because it did not seem to him that Jane was truly attached to Bingley. Wickham was Darcy's father's god-son. Before his death, Darcy's father had asked Darcy to provide Wickham with a living if Wickham were to decide to enter the clergy. Wickham, however, did not want to enter the clergy. He asked Darcy for 3,000 pounds, purportedly for law school, and agreed not to ask for any more. Darcy gave Wickham the money and he squandered it all on dissolute living, then came back and told Darcy he would like to enter the clergy if he could have the living promised to him. Darcy refused. Later, with the help of her governess Miss Younge, Wickham got Darcy's younger sister Georgiana to fall in love with him and agree to an elopement, in order to revenge himself on Mr. Darcy and get Miss Darcy's fortune. Fortunately, Darcy found out and intervened at the last minute. After reading these explanations in the letter Elizabeth's first reaction is disbelief, but after reflecting upon and slowly rereading the letter, she begins to see that Darcy is telling the truth and that she was only inclined to believe Wickham's story because he had flattered her with his attentions, while she was inclined to think ill of Darcy because he had wounded her pride on their first meeting. Soon afterwards, Elizabeth returns home from her stay with the Collinses and Jane returns home from her stay with the Gardiners. When they return their mother and sisters are upset because the regiment stationed in Meryton will soon be leaving, depriving them of most of their amusement. Lydia receives an offer from Mrs. Forster,Colonel Forster's wife, to accompany her to Brighton, where the regiment will be going. Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go, thinking that such a trip could lead to serious misconduct on Lydia's part because of the flirtatiousness and frivolity of her character and her complete lack of a sense of propriety. However, Mr. Bennet does not heed Elizabeth's advice. Elizabeth goes on vacation with the Gardiners. Their first stop is in the area of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate. The Gardiners want to take a tour, and having found out that Mr. Darcy is away, Elizabeth agrees. During their tour of the estate the housekeeper tells them about how kind and good-natured Darcy is. Elizabeth is impressed by this praise, and also thinks of how amazing it would be to be the mistress of such an estate. During their tour of the gardens Elizabeth and the Gardiners run into Mr. Darcy, who has returned early from his trip. Darcy is extremely cordial to both Elizabeth and the Gardiners and tells Elizabeth that he wants her to meet his sister Georgiana as soon as she arrives.

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Darcy and Georgiana pay a visit to Elizabeth and the Gardiners at their inn on the very morning of Georgiana's arrival. Bingley comes to visit as well. It is clear that he still has a regard for Jane. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth return their civilities by calling at Pemberley to visit Georgiana. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are there as well, and they thinly conceal their displeasure at seeing Elizabeth. One morning Elizabeth receives a letter from Jane announcing that Lydia has eloped with Wickham, and that they fear Wickham does not actually intend to marry her. Jane asks Elizabeth to return home immediately. Darcy comes to the door just after Elizabeth has received the news. She explains to him what has happened. He feels partially to blame for not having exposed Wickham's character publicly. Elizabeth and the Gardiners depart for Longbourn immediately. Mrs. Bennet is in hysterics and the entire burden of keeping the household together in this moment of crisis has fallen on Jane's shoulders. They find out from Colonel Forster that Wickham has over 1,000 pounds of gambling debts and nearly that much owed to merchants. The next dayMr. Gardiner goes to join Mr. Bennet in London to help him search for Lydia. After many days of fruitless searches Mr. Bennet returns home and leaves the search in Mr. Gardiner's hands. Soon a letter arrives from Mr. Gardiner explaining that Lydia and Wickham have been found and that Wickham will marry Lydia if Mr. Bennet provides her with her equal share of his wealth. Knowing that, with his debts, Wickham would never have agreed to marry Lydia for so little money, Mr. Bennet thinks that Mr. Gardiner must have paid off Wickham's debts for him. After their marriage Lydia and Wickham come to visit Longbourn. Lydia is completely shameless and not the least bit remorseful for her conduct. Mrs. Bennet is very happy to have one of her daughters married. Elizabeth hears from Lydia that Darcy was present at the wedding. She writes to her aunt to ask her why he was there. She responds explaining that it was Darcy who had found Lydia and Wickham and who had negotiated with Wickham to get him to marry her. Mrs. Gardiner thinks that Darcy did this out of love for Elizabeth. Bingley and Mr. Darcy return to Netherfield Park. They call at Longbourn frequently. After several days Bingley proposes to Jane. She accepts and all are very happy. In the meantime Darcy has gone on a short business trip to London. While he is gone Lady Catherine comes to Longbourn and asks to speak with Elizabeth. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she has heard Darcy is going to propose to her and attempts to forbid Elizabeth to accept the proposal. Elizabeth refuses to make any promises. Lady Catherine leaves in a huff. Darcy returns from his business trip. While he and Elizabeth are walking he tells her that his affection for her is the same as when he last proposed, and asks her if her disposition toward him has changed. She says that it has, and that she would be happy to accept his proposal. They speak about how they have been changed since the last proposal. Darcy realized he had been wrong to act so proudly and place so much emphasis on class differences. Elizabeth realized that she had been wrong to judge Darcy prematurely and to allow her judgment to be affected by her vanity. Both couples marry. Elizabeth and Darcy go to live in Pemberley. Jane and Bingley, after living in Netherfield for a year, decide to move to an estate near Pemberley. Kitty begins to spend most of her time with her two sisters, and her education and character begin to improve. Mary remains at home keeping her mother company. Mr. Bennet is very happy that his two oldest daughters have married so happily. Mrs. Bennet is glad that her daughters have married so prosperously.

MAJOR THEMES
Pride As said in the words of Mary at the beginning of the novel, "human nature is particularly prone to [pride]" (Volume I, Chapter 5). In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. Pride is one of the main barriers that create an obstacle to Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage. Darcy's pride in his position in society leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle. Elizabeth's vanity clouds her judgment, making her prone to think ill of Darcy and to think well of Wickham. In the end, Elizabeth's rebukes of Darcy help him to realize his fault and to change accordingly, as demonstrated in his genuinely friendly

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treatment of the Gardiners, whom he previously would have scorned because of their low social class. Darcy's letter shows Elizabeth that her judgments were wrong and she realizes that they were based on vanity, not on reason. Prejudice Pride and prejudice are intimately related in the novel. As critic A. Walton Litz comments, "in Pride and Prejudice one cannot equate Darcy with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcy's pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeth's initial prejudice against him is rooted in pride of her own quick perceptions." Darcy, having been brought up in such a way that he began to scorn all those outside his own social circle, must overcome his prejudice in order to see that Elizabeth would be a good wife for him and to win Elizabeth's heart. The overcoming of his prejudice is demonstrated when he treats the Gardiners with great civility. The Gardiners are a much lower class than Darcy, because Mr. Darcy is a lawyer and must practice a trade to earn a living, rather than living off of the interest of an estate as gentlemen do. From the beginning of the novel Elizabeth prides herself on her keen ability for perception. Yet this supposed ability is often lacking, as in Elizabeth's judgments of Darcy and Wickham. Family Austen portrays the family as primarily responsible for the intellectual and moral education of children. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's failure to provide this education for their daughters leads to the utter shamelessness, foolishness, frivolity, and immorality of Lydia. Elizabeth and Jane have managed to develop virtue and strong characters in spite of the negligence of their parents, perhaps through the help of their studies and the good influence of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, who are the only relatives in the novel that take a serious concern in the girls' well-being and provide sound guidance. Elizabeth and Jane are constantly forced to put up with the foolishness and poor judgment of their mother and the sarcastic indifference of their father. Even when Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, he ignores the advice because he thinks it would too difficult to deal with Lydia's complaining. The result is the scandal of Lydia's elopement with Wickham. Women and Marriage Austen is critical of the gender injustices present in 19th century English society. The novel demonstrates how money such as Charlotte need to marry men they are not in love with simply in order to gain financial security. The entailment of the Longbourn estate is an extreme hardship on the Bennet family, and is quite obviously unjust. The entailment of Mr. Bennet's estate leaves his daughters in a poor financial situation which both requires them to marry and makes it more difficult to marry well. Clearly, Austen believes that woman is at least as intelligent and capable as men, and considers their inferior status in society to be unjust. She herself went against convention by remaining single and earning a living through her novels. In her personal letters Austen advises friends only to marry for love. Through the plot of the novel it is clear that Austen wants to show how Elizabeth is able to be happy by refusing to marry for financial purposes and only marrying a man whom she truly loves and esteems. Class Considerations of class are omnipresent in the novel. The novel does not put forth an egalitarian ideology or call for the leveling of all social classes, yet it does criticize an over-emphasis on class. Darcy's inordinate pride is based on his extreme class-consciousness. Yet eventually he sees that factors other than wealth determine who truly belongs in the aristocracy. While those such as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who are born into the aristocracy, are idle, mean-spirited and annoying, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are not members of the aristocracy in terms of wealth or birth but are natural aristocrats by virtue of their intelligence, good-breeding and virtue. The comic formality of Mr. Collins and his obsequious relationship with Lady Catherine serve as a satire class consciousness and social formalities. In the end, the verdict on class differences is moderate. As critic Samuel Kliger notes, "It the conclusion of the novel makes it clear that Elizabeth accepts class relationships as valid, it becomes equally clear that Darcy, through Elizabeth's genius for treating all people with respect for their natural dignity, is reminded that institutions are not an end in themselves but are intended to serve the end of human happiness." Individual and Society The novel portrays a world in which society takes an interest in the private virtue of its members. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, therefore, it is scandal to the whole society and an injury to entire Bennet family. Darcy considers his failure to expose the wickedness of Wickham's character to be a breach of his social duty because if Wickham's true character had been known others would not have been so easily deceived by him. While Austen is

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critical of society's ability to judge properly, as demonstrated especially in their judgments of Wickham and Darcy, she does believe that society has a crucial role in promoting virtue. Austen has a profound sense that individuals are social beings and that their happiness is found through relationships with others. According to critic Richard Simpson, Austen has a "thorough consciousness that man is a social being, and that apart from society there is not even the individual." Virtue Austen's novels unite Aristotelian and Christian conceptions of virtue. She sees human life as purposeful and believes that human beings must guide their appetites and desires through their use of reason. Elizabeth's folly in her misjudgments of Darcy and Wickham is that her vanity has prevented her from reasoning objectively. Lydia seems almost completely devoid of virtue because she has never trained herself to discipline her passions or formed her judgment such that she is capable of making sound moral decisions. Human happiness is found by living a life in accordance with human dignity, which is a life in accordance with virtue. Self-knowledge has a central place in the acquisition of virtue, as it is a prerequisite for moral improvement. Darcy and Elizabeth are only freed of their pride and prejudice when their dealings with one another help them to see their faults and spur them to improve.

Character List
Elizabeth Bennet The protagonist of the novel and the second oldest of five sisters, Elizabeth is lively, quick-witted, sharp-tongued, bold and intelligent. Elizabeth is good-looking, and is especially distinguished by her fine eyes. The importance of her eyes may be symbolic of her abilities of perception. She has pride in her abilities to perceive the truth of situations and of people's characters. However, her perceptive abilities fail her frequently because she is influenced by vanity and judges people rashly. By the end of the novel she overcomes her prejudice through her dealings with Darcy. Elizabeth is concerned with propriety, good-manners, and virtue, but is not impressed by mere wealth or titles. Mr. Darcy An extremely wealthy aristocrat, Darcy is proud, haughty and extremely conscious of class differences at the beginning of the novel. He does, however, have a strong sense of honor and virtue. Elizabeth's rebukes after his first proposal to her help him to recognize his faults of pride and social prejudice. It is, in fact, precisely because Elizabeth is not so awed by his high social status as to be afraid to criticize his character that he is attracted to her. The self-knowledge acquired from Elizabeth's rebukes and the desire to win Elizabeth's love spur him to change and judge people more by their character than by their social class. Jane Bennet Jane is the oldest in the family. Beautiful, good-tempered, sweet, amiable, humble and selfless, Jane is universally well-liked. She refuses to judge anyone badly, always making excuses for people when Elizabeth brings their faults to her attention. Her tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt leads her to be hurt by insincere friends such as Caroline Bingley, although in the end her judgments seem to be more accurate than Elizabeth's overall and to do her much less harm. Jane is a static characteras she is basically a model of virtue from the beginning, there is no room for her to develop in the novel. Charles Bingley Mr. Bingley, much like Jane, is an amiable and good-tempered person. He is not overly concerned with class differences, and Jane's poor family connections are not a serious deterrent to his attachment to her. Bingley is very modest and easily swayed by the advice of his friends, as seen in his decision not to propose to Jane as a result of Darcy's belief that Jane is not really attached to him. Also like Jane, Bingley lacks serious character faults and is thus static throughout the novel. His character and his love for Jane remain constant; the only thing that changes is the advice of Darcy, which leads him not to propose to Jane in the beginning of the novel but to propose to her in the end.

Mr. Wickham

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An officer in the regiment stationed at Meryton, Wickham is quickly judged to be a perfectly good and amiable man because of his friendliness and the ease of his manners. He initially shows a preference for Elizabeth, and she is pleased by his attentions and inclined to believe his story about Darcy. Yet while Wickham has the appearance of goodness and virtue, this appearance is deceptive. His true nature begins to show itself through his attachment to Miss King for purely mercenary purposes and then through Darcy's exposition of his past and through his elopement with Lydia, deceiving her to believe that he intends to marry her. Mrs. Bennet Mrs. Bennet is a foolish and frivolous woman. She lacks all sense of propriety and virtue and has no concern for the moral or intellectual education of her daughters. From the beginning of the novel her sole obsession is to marry off her daughters. She is perfectly happy with Lydia's marriage, and never once censures her daughter for her shameful conduct or for the worry she has caused her family. Her impropriety is a constant source of mortification for the Elizabeth, and the inane nature of her conversation makes her society so difficult to bear that even Jane and Bingley decide to move out of the neighborhood a year after they are married. Mr. Bennet An intelligent man with good sense, Mr. Bennet made the mistake of marrying a foolish woman. He takes refuge in his books and seems to want nothing more than to be bothered as little as possible by his family. His indolence leads to the neglect of the education of daughters. Even when Elizabeth warns him not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton because of the moral danger of the situation, he does not listen to her because he does not want to be bothered with Lydia's complaints. Lydia Bennet The youngest of the Bennet sisters, Lydia is foolish and flirtatious, given up to indolence and the gratification of every whim. She is the favorite of Mrs. Bennet, because the two have such similar characters. Lydia is constantly obsessed with the officers in the regiment, and sees no purpose to life beyond entertainment and diversion. She lacks any sense of virtue, propriety or good-judgment, as seen in her elopement with Wickham and her complete lack of remorse afterward. Catherine (Kitty) Bennet Kitty seems to have little personality of her own, but simply to act as a shadow to Lydia, following Lydia's lead in whatever she does. The end of the novel provides hope that Lydia's character will improve by being removed from the society of Lydia and her mother and being taken care of primarily by Jane and Elizabeth. Mary Bennet The third oldest of the Bennet sisters, Mary is strangely solemn and pedantic. She dislikes going out into society, and to prefers to spend her time studying. In conversation, Mary is constantly moralizing or trying to make profound observations about human nature and life in general. Mr. Collins A clergyman and an extremely comical character because of his mix of obsequiousness and pride, Mr. Collins is fond of making long and silly speeches and stating formalities which have absolutely no meaning in themselves. For Mr. Collins, speech is not a means to communicate truth but a means to say what he thinks the people around him want to hear or what will make the people around him think well of him. He is in line to inherit Longbourn once Mr. Bennet dies, and wants to marry one of the Miss Bennets to lessen the burden of the entailment. When Elizabeth refuses him, he considers his duty discharged and transfers his affections to Charlotte Lucas. Charlotte Lucas Charlotte acts as a foil to Elizabeth by embodying the opposite view of marriage. Charlotte makes no attempt to find a husband whom she loves and esteems, but simply gives in to the necessity of acquiring financial security through marriage. She deals as well with Mr. Collins as is possible, but Elizabeth doubts their long-term happiness. Mrs. Gardiner An intelligent, caring and sensible woman, Mrs. Gardiner acts a mother to Elizabeth and Jane, filling in for the inadequacy of Mrs. Bennet. She brings Jane to London with her in order to help cheer her up when she is heartbroken because of Bingley's failure to return to Netherfield, and she advises Elizabeth to avoid encouraging

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Wickham's affections. She attempts to help Lydia see why her elopement with Wickham was wrong, but Lydia is completely inattentive. Mr. Gardiner Mr. Gardiner is a merchant, and is an upright and intelligent man. The fact that he earns his money by working puts him in a lower social class than those who simply live off the interest of their land. Like his wife, Mr. Gardiner is one of those people whom Austen portrays as a natural aristocrat, and whom Darcy comes to like after overcoming his class prejudice. Caroline Bingley Miss Bingley is a superficial and selfish. She has all of Darcy's class prejudice but none of his honor and virtue. Throughout the novel she panders to Darcy in an attempt to win his affections, but to no avail. She pretends to be a genuine friend to Jane but is extremely rude to her when she comes to London. She also tries to prevent the marriage of Jane and Bingley and to prevent Darcy's attachment to Elizabeth by constantly ridiculing the poor manners of Elizabeth's mother and younger sisters.

EXTRA NOTES:

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VANITY FAIR
William Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India to Richmond Thackeray, a secretary to the board of revenue in the British East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher, sent him to England for his education when his father died in 1815. He eventually attended the Charterhouse School, which he despised and thus later parodied as "Slaughterhouse" in his fiction. His first writing appeared here in the publications The Snob and The Gownsman. His matriculation to Trinity College was delayed by illness, and he dropped out in 1830. Over the next six years, Thackeray led a scattered and irresponsible life. He traveled all over Europe and met Goethe in Weimar. When he returned to England he began to study law, but he soon abandoned it. He lost much of his fortune gambling and as a result of the collapse of two Indian banks. He also tried pursuing art but again abandoned the subject when he did not find success. He made two attempts at founding newspapers, both of which failed. He married Isabella Shawe, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe, who served with distinction in India. Three daughters were born of the marriage, Anne, Harriet, and Jane, who died early. He turned to journalism after his marriage and the birth of his daughters to support his family. The ten-year period from 1837 to 1847 saw him published in several magazines on topics ranging from literary and art criticism to political and social commentaries. He gained some notoriety with two travel books and The Book of Snobs, which appeared in the newly created Punch magazine as "The Snob Papers" in 1846-7. Tragedy also struck his personal life during this period when his wife sank into a deep depression of after the birth of their third child. She would never fully recover and would be confined in a home near Paris. Fame was established when the novel Vanity Fair first appeared in serial installments beginning in January, 1847. Several successful novels followed, including Pendennis, The Newcomes, and The History of Henry Esmond. He became much sought after, as a lecturer in the US and in England, and he was hailed as an equal of Dickens. A run for Parliament fell short by a mere 33 votes. He continued to publish in magazines and became editor of Cornhill Magazine in 1860. During the 1850s, his health began to deteriorate, exacerbated by over-eating and excessive drinking. On December 23, 1863, he suffered a stroke and died in his home. Several thousand mourners attended his funeral and he was buried at Kensal Green Cemetary. Marochetti sculpted a memorial bust which is on diplay in Westminster Abbey.

Vanity Fair Summary


The novel opens at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for young women, where readers are introduce to Amelia and Becky, the novel's female protagonists. Amelia and Becky are friends, but they are nothing alike. Amelia is kind and innocent and comes from a family with money. Becky Sharp, on the other hand, is sharp and scheming and emerges from an impoverished situation. Miss Pinkerton, utterly disgusted with Becky's behavior, sets her up in a governess position at the Crawley estate. Before she takes her position, Becky spends a little over a week at Amelia's home. She spends her time ingratiating herself with the Sedleys and wooing Amelia's brother Jos, an overweight, shy and vain tax collector on break from his job in India. Becky nearly succeeds in arranging the marriage, until George, Amelia's love interest, steps in and convinces Jos he has behaved like a fool. Jos, humiliated, abandons home and Becky, furious with George, moves on to her job. Becky once again attempts to woo Jos, but Dobbin warns him about Becky's true nature. Regardless, he agrees to take out a life insurance policy with Becky as a beneficiary; he dies months later of poisoning. Rawdon soon dies of yellow fever, and Sir Pitt passes away, leaving the estate to little Rawdon. Becky is then able to live comfortably off the money she took from Jos and the money sent by her son. The Crawleys are a rather despicable bunch and nothing like what Becky suspected. They are all scheming for the inheritance of Aunt Matilda, who is ill. Becky once again ingratiates herself with the family and earns the particular affections of Sir Pitt and Rawdon, who both ask for her hand in marriage. She admits begrudgingly to Sir Pitt that she agreed to marry Rawdon in secret, and everyone in the family is outraged when they hear this news. Meanwhile, Amelia pines over George, who disrespects and disregards her while he is in the military. Dobbin, who is George's closest friend and who is also secretly in love with Amelia, begs him to treat her kindly. George

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eventually agrees to marry Amelia, but just as his father predicted, the Sedleys come to financial ruin because of Mr. Sedley's poor business decisions. George's father disowns him in response to Dobbin's efforts to get him to accept the marriage. The Duke of Wellington has declared war on Napoleon's army; since all the men are in the military, everyone goes to Belgium to prepare for the war. When the husbands go off to fight, the general's wife takes care of the women who are left behind. Amelia worries about George, and Rawdon mourns having to leave Becky, but Becky seems unconcerned about her soon-to-be husband and instead appears to be developing something with George. Unfortunately, George dies in the Battle of Waterloo. Sir Pitt, in the wake of his second wife's death, takes up with his butler's daughter, causing scandal at the household. The young Pitt Crawley finds a sweet wife who manages to earn the approval of Aunt Matilda, who never thought much of the older of Sir Pitt's sons. Both Amelia and Becky give birth to sons, and for a while Becky and Rawdon manage to live well on very little money; Becky is skilled at avoiding payments. The Sedleys, on the other hand, continue to slip further into financial ruin. Amelia sends Georgy, her son, to live with the Osbornes because of her difficult situation. When Sir Pitt dies, young Mr. Crawley inherits the estate and Aunt Matilda's money, and he invites Becky and Rawdon and their son to come live with him. Becky ingratiates herself with a man named Lord Steyne, who brings her out into society, sends little Rawdon, her son, away from school, and generally distracts her from her husband. When she neglects to send money to get Rawdon out of prison, where he has landed himself for unpaid gambling debts, he decides to investigate her new relationship. When he returns home, he finds jewels in her belongings, and he decides to duel Lord Steyne. The fight is avoided, but Rawdon moves away. Dobbin returns to England, and he finds Amelia, who is still grieving the loss of George. Dobbins stick around anyway to help Amelia care for her son. Mr. Osborne dies and leaves some of his money for Amelia and Georgy, and three of them go off to Europe, where they find Becky. Becky admits to Amelia that she had been developing a relationship with George, and Amelia finally comes to her senses, sees George for who he really was, and marries Dobbin.

Character List
Rebecca Sharp The protagonist of the novel, Becky is a strong-willed young woman obsessed with status and wealth. She attends Miss Pinkerton's academy as an orphan completely alone in the world. She makes only one friend, Amelia, who is friends with everyone. She frustrates everyone else, acting superior to them all, speaking French when she knows that no one understands and demanding pay to teach lessons. As soon as she is out of the school she begins her manipulations. She feigns attraction to Joseph Sedley because she understands the position and wealth marriage to him would earn her. She also appeals to Rawdon Crawley, whom she ends up marrying. Sir Pitt, the baronet, also falls for her. It is clear that men fall at her feet, but she doesn't ever express sincere love for them. She finds Rawdon stupid, sees Sir Pitt only for his status and money, and hates George for his interference in her plan to marry Joseph. Rebecca is also a compulsive liar. She has an affair with George behind Amelia's back. While she is with Rawdon, she flirts with men of status in order to steal their money. She tries her best to secure Aunt Matilda's estate by attending to her. She manages to get Joseph to sign an insurance policy handing over half of what he owned before he died. Amelia Sedley Amelia is a good-natured girl, difficult to dislike. She makes many friends at Miss Pinkerton's school. However, she is easily manipulated and patronized when she emerges into society. George walks all over her, and his sisters are condescending to her. Yet she remains infatuated with George, convinced that he must love her in return. Her innocence is initially framed as something good, but soon the author reveals that this quality is also her curse. She is a victim of so many things; her family's designs, her family's financial ruin, Becky's ruthlessness, George's indifference, society's cruelty.

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Amelia is nevertheless a determined woman. Her son is her obsession, so she fights to keep and provide for him. She lets her family and herself starve and struggle so that he can have nice things. She resolves to commit suicide when he is taken from her, but instead, she spends all her time spying on the boy. Joseph Sedley Joseph, or Jos, is Amelia's elder brother. He is Boggley Wallah's collector in India. He is a relatively wealthy man, and he admires people only based on whether or not they come from the nobility. He dresses in ridiculous, extravagant clothing and is grossly overweight. His father constantly makes jokes at his expense, which frightens Jos. Jos is also frightened of women, which becomes especially evident when Becky tries to flirt with him and win his hand in marriage. He becomes easily deterred when he makes a drunken fool of himself and totally abandons the prospect. Jos goes to war as a civilian but dresses in military clothing to impress people. When the war starts, he decides to change back into civilian clothing so that he won't be noticed. The sound of bombs frightens him, and he buys horses from Becky at a ridiculous price so that he can escape. Even though his family is at the point of starvation, Jos only sends them a small yearly allowance from his paycheck. He refuses to buy his father's wine, even though it will help his business, because the wine is not any good. Near the end of the novel, he once again finds himself in Becky's snares, and he becomes another of her unsuspecting victims. George Osborne George is a disrespectful playboy who happens to be Amelia's love interest and the man she has been promised to since childhood. He is obsessed with the chase and does not seem to have the capacity to love anything other than himself. He gambles, drinks, constantly buys things for himself, and takes advantage of Amelia's feelings for him and of Dobbin's loyal friendship. Eventually, he marries Amelia partly because she is so touchingly pathetic and partly because it makes him feel generous to be giving the girl her heart's desire. He also seems to enjoy the fact that he is defying his father. He seems to take his military responsibilities seriously, for he refuses the comfortable life his father offers him, and he dies in the Battle of Waterloo. William Dobbin George's best friend, Dobbin is one of the characters not consumed by vanity. He is sincere and kind, and he does not expect recognition for his good acts. He is in love with Amelia, but he defers to George, and she doesn't even notice his affections for her. He plays an instrumental role in making their marriage possible. He is confused about this gesture, considering his strong feelings for Amelia. He is also extremely humble. There are several occasions in the book that he submits to George, even when it is clear that he is in the right. As often as he encourages George on the right path, at the end of the day, he never truly speaks up for himself. Sir Pitt Crawley Sir Pitt is Rebecca's wealthy employer. He is a baronet but has accrued enormous debt over the years and therefore hopes to be the beneficiary of his sister's fortune when she passes away. He is miserly and cruel, and he treats his wife with indifference. He has an inappropriate affinity for younger women. The current Lady Crawley is younger than he, and when she dies, he immediately seeks Rebecca's hand in marriage. When she refuses, he moves on to the young Ms. Horrocks, the daughter of his butler. The end of Sir Pitt's life is spent in embarrassing drunken debauchery. He reveals his true nature when he starts spending all his time with the common people, the friends of his servants, and making passes at his butler's daughter. He feels more at ease with this crowd, which makes sense when considering the narrator's commentary on his rough, crude manner at the beginning of the novel.

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Young Pitt Crawley The older son of Sir Pitt, he is one of the contenders for Aunt Matilda's fortune. However, he stands in stark contrast to his irresponsible brother Rawdon. He is Lady Crawley's favorite; he is in fact the only one who even pays her any attention. He eventually marries the young Jane Sheepshanks and becomes the heir to Sir Pitt's estate. He treats Rebecca and Rawdon with kindness by inviting them to come stay at his residence. Eventually, he becomes the heir to Aunt Matilda's money as well. Rebecca sends her son, Rawdon, to live with him. He turns out to be the most responsible member of the Crawley family, and indeed he seems to benefit because of it. At the same time, he falls for Becky's lies, since he finds her more intelligent, interesting, and potentially useful than his own wife. Rawdon Crawley Rawdon is another of the novel's playboys. He doesn't care about education, he fights duels and he gambles. The first honest and honorable thing he does is marry Rebecca, with whom he falls dearly in love. He vows to take care of her. In a gesture of love, he purchases a house and furnishes it with credit, which indicates also that he is an incredibly irresponsible man. Rebecca's reflections make it clear that Rawdon is not very bright; he soon falls victim to her designs. She promises to take care of him, and naively, he takes her word for it. To earn money, he gambles, and Rebecca makes sure, using her feminine wiles, that he wins often enough to support them. He eventually lands himself in prison for not paying his debts, and when Rebecca doesn't bail him out, he finally becomes suspicious and uncovers all of the fraud she has engaged in over the years with various men. He walks out on her. Old Osborne Old Osborne is George's father. He used to be a friend and beneficiary of Mr. Sedley, but when the Sedleys fall into financial ruin, he breaks off all ties with them and encourages his son to abandon their daughter. He also tries to push his son towards a wealthy heiress, encouraging him to forget his military duties and consider joining Parliament. John Osborne clearly does not have much integrity. He does feel a little remorse at turning his back on the Sedleys, but this does not change his actions. He disowns his son when George decides to marry Amelia, and when George dies, he is more worried about appearances it seems than about the tragedy itself. He is willing to wrest a son from his mother when Amelia is in financial trouble, as if exacting revenge for marrying his son. Lord Steyne Lord Steyne is a marquis from a long line of wealthy nobles. He ignores his wife and tries to drown his boredom in social gatherings. He has a son, George, whom he does not acknowledge because George is mentally ill. Lord Steyne is one of the many men who falls for Becky's schemes. He finds himself enamored of her, and he spends many evenings at her home. He gives her money and jewelry and hides this from her husband. He is quick to believe her lies, probably because he wants to believe them.

Major Themes
Vanity Contained in the title of the book, vanity is a predominant theme in Thackeray's novel. Vanity is what classifies the society Thackeray satirizes. Vanity describes the motivations of most of the characters, because in Thackeray's view, this is the quality that motivates the bourgeoisie in reality. Vanity takes many forms in the novel, from Becky's flirtation with rich, noble men, to Jos' dress, to John Osborne's rejection of Amelia. Vanity appears most often in the novel in the form of excessive love of the self, or narcissism. Amelia, though often portrayed as a selfless victim, is guilty of this trait when she desperately takes whatever she can get from her rich and corrupt father-in-law. What vanity comes down to in the novel is an obsession with ephemeral, inevitably worthless things. This is best illustrated in Dobbin's obsession with Amelia, because even though he is the only character Thackeray does not consider "odious", he can only have the one thing he has always wanted after declaring that it is not worthy of his devotion.

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Heroism The author tells his readers that this is going to be a novel without a hero. This is indeed an understatement, because most of his main characters behave far less than heroically. There is little selflessness, sacrifice, and courage in Vanity Fair. In the battle, George gets excited, but the author frames this as reckless abandon rather than heroism. Jos, in an extremely anti-heroic fashion, runs as soon as the violence begins. Sir Pitt, who seems to have heroic potential in his kindness towards Lady Crawley, changes his colors as soon as he comes into his inheritance. Additionally, Dobbin, the character who might be considered the most heroic, asserts himself only at the very end of the noble, only to come running back to what he deemed worthless as soon as she calls on him. Interestingly, on the original cover of the book, there was a character dressed in motley. Despite his comical appearance, he stared with great intensity into a mirror. He held this mirror as if he just picked it up for a moment but then could not put it down. This image tells us that the characters in this novel are not heroes, but they are also not comedians; there is an element of serious tragedy that pervades the work and cannot be found humorous. In this way, Thackeray's characters are, in a way, suspended between the comic and the heroic. Time Time is an interesting them because it is partly dependent on the way in which the book was published. Thackeray wrote this novel in a series of installments. He would publish a few chapters at a time, so every few chapters features a suspenseful conclusion that is then resolved in the following chapter. Thackeray relies on this format in part to keep his readers wanting more. It makes sense, then, that there are a number of flashbacks in the novel, and that even when the narrator claims he is not going to describe a character's past in order to bring the reader up to speed, he actually does. It was important to keep his readers updated when he was publishing a book in serial format. There is also the sense in the book that time is suspended. Even though people are moving forward and living their lives, there is a feeling that the same game is being played over and over again. This is the game of social mobility, of feigned appearances that Thackeray critiques in his novel. It gives his novel a sense of morbidity, because instead of a chronological progression towards some worthy goal, Thackeray's characters are stuck in an empty, worthless exercise. Death Because of the nature of the novel, it is easy to forget how much death there actually is in Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair is an extremely morbid place, but because so many people in the book die so naturally, the reader does not dwell on each passage. The reader focuses instead on Thackeray's humorous jabs at society. However, death is one of the author's tools for stressing his moral conclusions. Thackeray writes the book to implicate bourgeois "snobbery," and by letting the burden of death permeate his work, he makes his point that much more effectively. Death is seen in conjunction with greed and wealth, especially in the case of Aunt Matilda. The author is contrasting Matilda's belongings with the pall of her illness, telling us that while things are temporary, death is forever.

Materialism Thackeray has a tendency to focus on objects in the book. He calls one of his titles "The Green Silk Purse" in reference to a purse that Becky has been weaving at the Sedley home. Jos Sedley's attire is often described with the greatest detail. Homes are packed with portraits, often portraying falsely the characters in them. Materialism is a symptom of bourgeois society, and therefore, Thackeray condemns it. This is most obvious because it is a conspicuous characteristic of Jos Sedley, whom the narrator constantly ridicules, often via other characters (his father, Georgy). But materialism afflicts most of the characters, because having a lot of things is a sign of wealth. Even Amelia is obsessed with the piano that Dobbin purchased for her; in this way, we see that things can blind people to the truth, since she is convinced that George is the one who bought it.

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Truth vs. Ideal Thackeray firmly proclaims many times in his work that he is devoted to revealing the truth, even though a true portrait of bourgeois society is not an appealing one. All of Thackeray's characters struggle because they avoid truth. Becky deceives everyone but her schemes eventually turn on her. Amelia refuses to see the truth about George's playboy nature and his infidelity. Dobbin refuses to accept that Amelia does not love him, and he endures years of torment at her side. Rawdon refuses to acknowledge Becky's manipulations. But it is Thackeray's hope also to make a distinction between the things in life that are worth living for and the things that are ephemeral and do not matter. To this effect, he is constantly critiquing his characters, usually humorously, because they do not live up to his expectations. But are these his expectations? Here we find that there is a bit of thematic conflict, because the author clearly moralizes but does not provide a conclusion or solution that responds to his moral judgments.

EXTRA NOTES:

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SHORT STORIES A Christmas Carol


Summary
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly, cold-hearted creditor, continues his stingy, greedy ways on Christmas Eve. He rejects a Christmas dinner invitation, and all the good tidings of the holiday, from his jolly nephew, Fred; he yells at charity workers; and he overworks his employee, Bob Cratchit. At night, Scrooge's former partner Jacob Marley, dead for seven years, visits him in the form of a ghost. Marley's spirit has been wandering since he died as punishment for being consumed with business and not with people while alive. He has come to warn Scrooge and perhaps save him from the same fate. He tells him Three Spirits will come to him over the next three nights. Scrooge falls asleep and wakes up to find the Ghost of Christmas Past, a small, elderly figure. The Ghost shows Scrooge scenes from the past that trace Scrooge's development from a young boy, lonely but with the potential for happiness, to a young man with the first traces of greed that would deny love in his life. Scrooge shows newfound emotion when revisiting these scenes, often crying from identification with his former neglected self. Scrooge goes to sleep and is awakened by the Ghost of Christmas Present, a giant with a life span of one day. He shows Scrooge several current scenes of Christmas joy and charity, then shows him the Cratchit household. The Ghost informs Scrooge that unless the future is changed, the Cratchit's crippled and good-hearted young son, Tiny Tim, will die. He also shows Scrooge the party at Fred's house. Finally, a ragged boy and girl crawl out from the Ghost's robes. The Ghost calls them Ignorance and Want and warns Scrooge to beware of Ignorance. The silent, black-clad Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come replaces the other ghost. He shows Scrooge several scenes of people discussing someone's death; no one seems pained by the death, and most are happy about it. Scrooge does not know, however, who the man is. He learns that Tiny Tim has died, but the Cratchits maintain their unity and love. Scrooge finally discovers that he is the one who has died and whose death has only pleased people. He expresses the hope that these scenes of the future can be changed, and vows to incorporate the lessons of the past, present, and future into his adoption of the Christmas spirit. Scrooge wakes up in his bedroom and learns that the whole adventure took only one night, not threeit is Christmas Day. In addition to smiling and being friendly to everyone he sees, he sends a large turkey to the Cratchits, gives a sizable donation to the charity worker he previously insulted, and has a wonderful time at Fred's party. The next day he gives Cratchit a raise. Scrooge continues his kindly ways after Christmas, befriending everyone and becoming a second father to Tiny Tim, who does not die. He never sees the ghosts again, but he keeps the spirit of Christmas alive in his heart as well as anyone.

Major Themes
The Christmas spirit Above all, A Christmas Carol is a celebration of Christmas and the good it inspires. At Christmas time, people forget their petty quotidian disputes, selfish tendencies, and workaholic schedules in favor of friendship, charity, and celebration. Several representatives of these virtues stand out in Dickens's cast. Fred is a model of good cheer, while Fezziwig adds to this the dimensions of being a tremendous friend and generous employer. Tiny Tim's courage and selflessness in the face of his ill health are also noteworthy, as is the loving nature of the entire Cratchit family. Scrooge learns the lessons of the Christmas spirit through his visions of Christmases past, present, and future; in each he sees either the ill effects his miserly nature has wrought or the good tidings that others bring about through their love and kindness. Redemption and free will The greatest pleasure in A Christmas Carol is watching Scrooge's transformation from money-pinching grouch to generous gentleman. His redemption, a major motif in Christian art, is made possible through free will. While Scrooge is shown visions of the future, he states (and his statement is borne out in Stave Five) that they are only

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visions of things that "May" be, not what "Will" be. He has the power to change the future with his present actions, and Dickens tries to impart this sense of free will to the reader; if Scrooge can change, then so can anyone. Critique of Victorian society Dickens blames the huge class stratification of Victorian England on the selfishness of the rich and, implicitly, on the Poor Laws that keep down the underclass. Scrooge is the obvious symbol of the greedy Victorian rich, while the Cratchits represent the working poor. But Dickens goes beyond sentimental portraits and reveals the underbelly of the city, notably in Stave Four. Even in the scene of the thieving workers divvying up the dead Scrooge's possessions, the accountability for their actions is put on Scroogehad he not been such a miser, they would not have resorted to stealing from him. When the children of Ignorance and Want crawl out from under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present, the ghost sends a message to Scrooge, and the same is given to the Victorian reader: to help out those in Want, and beware of Ignorance in oneself and others. Capitalist time and epiphanies At the beginning of the novella, Scrooge seems aware of only the present tense, the tense of capitalism. The now is the time to make or lose money, and the past and future exist only to serve the present. Dickens's attention to clocks and bells reinforces Scrooge's mania with time. However, Scrooge is redeemed when he learns to integrate the past, present, and future into his worldview. He steps out of the capitalist obsession with the present tense and into a timeless framework in which qualities like generosity and love cannot be quantified. His appreciation of the three tenses also comes in one fell swoop, overnight, and suggests that the epiphany, the sudden revelation of a profound meaning in life, encapsulates all three tenses.

Characters
Ebenezer Scrooge The protagonist, Scrooge is a cold, miserly creditor whose redemption to kindness and selflessness forms the arc of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge represents the Victorian rich who neglect the poor and think only of their own wellbeing. The most motivation Dickens provides for Scrooge's character is his depiction of him as a young boy; neglected by his peers and, it appears, by his father, the young Scrooge seemed determined to live only for himself as he aged. Bob Cratchit Cratchit is Scrooge's overworked employee, a timid man afraid to stand up to his boss's demanding ways. The patriarch of a family poor in wealth but rich in love, he cares especially dearly for his crippled son, Tiny Tim. Cratchit is a symbol for the Victorian poor, good-hearted and hard-working but unable to climb out the stifling conditions of poverty. Ghost of Christmas Past The first ghost to visit Scrooge, the small, elderly figure represents memory. Ghost of Christmas Present A giant clad in robes, this ghost has 1800 brothers and a life span of one day. He represents celebration and charity. Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come This solemn, silent phantom represents death, but also the presents the possibilities that the future is not determined, but open to the free will of humans.

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The long voyage


It is about a man alone on New Year's Eve, who loves to "sit by the fire, thinking of what I have read in books of voyage and travel" while he himself has never been "around the world, never has been shipwrecked, ice-environed, tomahawked, or eaten." Some of the books he has read concern Christopher Columbus, James Bruce who searched for the source of the Nile, John Franklin who made an "unhappy overland Journey" and was lost searching for the northwest passage in the Canadian Arctic, "Men-selling despots" and the Atlantic and Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer (1771-1806) who wrote "Travels in the Interior of Africa", and other adventure stories. He also touches on the "one awful creature" by the name of Alexander Pearce who escapes from a penal colony on an island - and cannibalizes his fellow escapees. He then tells the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, and of Thursday October Christian, the son of Fletcher Christian, who mutinied against Captain Bligh leaving Bligh to fend for himself on the open sea. He then reads about the sad fate of the Halsewell, a shipwreck on the rocks of Seacombe where 160 people died. Captain Pierce stayed to comfort his daughters, even though he could have saved himself. Finally, he recounts the exciting story of the Grosvenor, an English bound mercantile ship that ran aground on 4 August 1782 in South Africa - and of the 125 who made it on shore - only 13 survived the trip back to civilization. After meditating on these stories he comes to a startling realization about The Long Voyage looking into the fire on that first of January 1853.

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