An Introduction to Literature

 

The Japanese Quince

By John Galsworthy

 

Setting

 

The story takes place at the start of the 20th century in London. The main character and his neighbor both work in "the city," which is London's commercial area.

 

Characters

 

Mr. Nilson is a London businessman who seems to be in perfect health but has some worrying symptoms.

 

Mr. Tandram lives right next door to Nilson. He is also in business, and his symptoms are the same as Nilson's.

 

Point of View

 

The narrator tells the story from a third-person point of view.

 

Interpretation and Theme

 

The point of the story is that many people live boring, ordinary lives but don't want to change. They are in a routine. Galsworthy says that Mr. Nilson is a person like this.

Nilson lives in a nice part of London and seems to make a lot of money as an investor in London's financial district. So, he has everything he needs to live an interesting life. He doesn't have the motivation to get more involved in the world around him. He has lived next door to Mr. Tandrum for five years but has never spoken to him until the strange smell brings them together at the quince tree.

Both men are about the same height, have mustaches, carry newspapers, and do business in the financial district. This tells the reader that they are not very different from each other. They are part of the large group of men who live quiet, ordinary lives.

 

Climax

 

When Nilson hears Tandram cough and sees him look out the window at the Japanese quince, this is the most exciting part of the story. At this point, Nilson realizes that he and Tandram are the same and have the same boring lives.

 

Symbols

 

The Japanese Quince

Japanese quince is a small bush or tree with pink or red flowers that bloom in early spring. Mr. Nilson says in the story that they are fruitless... The Japanese quince, which is full of colorful blossoms, is a symbol of rebirth. Its smell tells Nilson and Tandram that they, too, could start a new life if they just tried.

 

The Blackbird

The blackbird is kind of a foil character and contrasts Mr. Nilson/Tandram. The blackbird uses its skills and abilities, but Mr. Nilson and Mr. Tandrams' lives are boring without their skills and individuality. (Maybe it has a negative role because of its color.)

 

The Lottery

 

•      Literary Period: Modernism

•      Genre: Realistic Fiction; Dystopian Literature

•      Setting: A rural small town, mid-twentieth century

•      Climax: Tessie Hutchinson is stoned to death by her neighbors, which reveals the purpose of the mysterious annual lottery.

•      Antagonist: The tradition of the lottery, the human inclination toward violence

•      Point of View: Third Person

•      protagonist: Tessie Hutchinson

 

Characters

 

Tessie Hutchinson is the woman chosen by chance to be sacrificed. At the end of the story, the villagers stone her to death. Tessie gets to the lottery late and says she forgot what day it was. When the Hutchinson family is chosen in the lottery, her pleasant attitude as she jokes with her neighbors changes in a big way. She tries to say that the way the drawing was done wasn't fair.

 

Davy Hutchinson

 

Mr. Joe Summers is the village's unofficial leader and runs the lottery. Mr. Summers does a lot of volunteer work for the community. He plans square dances, teen club meetings, and the Halloween party. The other villagers feel sorry for him because he doesn't have any kids and his wife is mean.

 

Old Man Warner is the oldest person in the village. He is the voice of tradition for the other people in the village. He talks a lot about how important it is to keep the lottery going. He says that if it stopped, society would go back to a primitive state, which would cause a lot of other problems.

 

Mrs. Janey Dunbar

 

Jack Watson

 

Bill Hutchinson

 

Themes

 

THE JUXTAPOSITION OF PEACE AND VIOLENCE

The first part of "The Lottery" is a description of a day with beautiful details and a warm tone. This is a sharp contrast to the story's violent and dark ending. Peace and violence are shown side by side, and the strange and cruel tradition of the lottery is shown in contrast.

 

HUMAN NATURE

In "The Lottery," Jackson looks at the basics of human nature. He asks if all people are capable of violence and cruelty, and he looks at how the structure of society can hide, direct, or emphasize these natural tendencies.

 

FAMILY STRUCTURE AND GENDER ROLES

In the first round of the lottery, one person from each family chooses a folded square of paper. This is a part of the tradition.

 

THE POWER OF TRADITION

In the story, the villagers do the lottery every year because they have always done it. The fact that this is a traditional practice and that the story implies that other villages are breaking with it by ridding of the lottery shows how powerful tradition can be for people.

 

DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY AND CONFORMITY

Jackson's "The Lottery" came out in the years after World War II, when the full truth about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust was known to everyone. Jackson's dystopian society in her story was a clear response to the fact that "dystopia" isn't just something made up in the mind; it can also happen in the real world.

 

Symbols

 

STONES

By doing this over and over, the stones become a symbol of the violence that people seem always ready to do.

 

THE BLACK BOX

The villagers draw the slips of paper for the lottery from the black box. This is a tradition, so the black box has a special meaning for the villagers. Even though it's not the original box used for the ritual, the villagers don't want to "upset tradition" by replacing it.

 

THE NOTATED PIECE OF PAPER

There is only one dark dot on the slip of paper that shows who the victim of the lottery is each year. Spots and marks are often signs of illness, so the appearance of the dot means that a person is marked for death as if he or she were sick and dangerous to others.

 

 

The Guest

By Albert Camus

 

Setting

 

In the early 1950s, after a snowstorm, the story takes place on a deserted plateau in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria.

 

Characters

 

Daru was born in Algeria to French parents. He teaches in a school. As a French citizen, he has to work with the colonial government in Algeria. But as a resident who was born in Algeria, he feels it's against his honor to turn in the Arab villager who is accused of killing someone. This situation makes him feel as alone as the empty land where he lives. Daru shows how the author felt. He loved both France and Algeria and hated that they were at war with each other.

 

The Arab: Algerian villager accused of killing his cousin.

 

Balducci is a Gendarme who takes the Arab from El Ameur to the school where Daru teaches. He thinks that the Arab is the one who killed the person.

 

Type of Work and Narration

 

 Camus uses an omniscient third-person point of view to show what the main character, Daru, is thinking, and he uses a limited third-person point of view to hide what the other two characters are thinking.

 

Themes

 

Self-Determination

Before Balducci and the Arab came, Daru did what the French government told him to do. Daru refuses to help when people in El Ameur tell him to take an Arab prisoner to the police station in Tinguit. He decides to go against authority because he has become aware of his independent spirit. Daru must start making his own decisions based on what his conscience tells him to do.

 

Isolation and Loneliness

Daru's life forces him to be alone and isolated in the following ways:

1. His place in society as a French citizen who lives in Algeria.

2. His choice to not follow the French order to turn over the Arab prisoner at the Tinguit police station.

3. His lonely environment. He teaches at a school high in the Atlas Mountains, on a plateau. He doesn't live next to anyone. Nearby, there are no bars, theaters, or stores.

 

Injustice of Colonialism

Between 1500 and 1900, European powers dominated and governed other countries to use them for their own political, economic, and military benefit. The Algerians violently rebelled against the French. "The Guest" criticizes the French occupation of Algeria.

 

Climax

 

The story's climax happens when Daru decides to let his prisoner go. This decision shows that he is no longer under the control of the government. It also gives the Arab a chance to choose his fate. It also gives the Arab a chance to choose his fate.

 

Symbols

 

French colonialism is shown by a blackboard drawing of the rivers of France. The picture shows that learning about the rivers of France is more important to Algerian children than learning about the geography of their own country (situational irony).

 

Untying the prisoner's hands is a sign that Daru is taking a step toward being free of other people's ideas. When he frees the prisoner, Daru starts to rebel against the French government on a philosophical level.

 

Desolate mountain plateau, which represented Daru's isolation as a Frenchman born in Algeria who was stuck between two warring groups. The vast, empty landscape could also represent the author's emotional emptiness after he stopped believing in God.

 

 

Clay

•      Literary Period: Modernism

•      Genre: Short story; modernism; realism; symbolism

•      Setting: Dublin, Ireland

•      Climax: Maria places her hand on a lump of clay in a Hallow Eve game

•      Antagonist: Maria’s loneliness and insecurity (There is both internal and external conflict in the story.)

•      Protagonist: Maria (static and round character)

•      Point of View: Third person limited

•      Tone: Nostalegic, Tragic

•      Style: Easy, Understandable

 

Characters

The protagonist in "Clay," Maria, is a middle-aged woman who has never married and works at a laundry in Dublin. Even though she is liked at work and known as a "peacemaker," her relationships with other people are superficial and sometimes painful. Joe Donnelly is her only close friend. She nursed him when he was a child, and he is now married,  While he asks Maria to stay with him. Throughout the story, Maria says or thinks one thing but feels another. When other people make her feel uncomfortable, for example, she often makes herself laugh to hide how she feels.

 

Joe Donnelly, Maria's best friend, and a static, flat character, is the host of the Hallow Eve party at the center of the story. He is Mrs. Donnelly's husband and the father of several kids. Maria has known Joe his whole life because she cared for him and his brother Alphy when they were young. Joe sees Maria as his "real mother," and he tries to help her. Joe sees Maria as his "real mother," and he tries to help her.

Mrs. Donnelly is Joe's wife. She is always kind to Maria. On Hallowe'en, Mrs. Donnelly agrees with Maria that Joe and Alphy should get back together, and she yells at the girls next door for bringing the clay that makes Maria look bad during the game.

Joe Donnelly's brother is Alphy Donnelly, with whom Joe no longer talks for unknown reasons. Maria took care of both Alphy and Joe when they were young, and she tries to "put in a good word for him" with Joe at the Hallow Eve party, which suggests that she still talks to Alphy.

Next-Door Girls

 

Themes

LONELINESS AND ESTRANGEMENT

In "Clay," a middle-aged woman named Maria who isn't married has trouble connecting with other people. Maria works with a lot of people and talks to strangers when she's out in the city, but most of these interactions aren't deep.

 

SADNESS AND REPRESSION

By describing what Maria is thinking, Joyce shows a woman who is trying to see the good in things. Maria tries to be happy, but it's clear that her life is hard, especially since she's not married and lives in a society that thinks marriage is the best thing for a woman.

 

PARALYSIS AND STAGNATION

Maria's life stays extremely unchanged throughout "Clay." Her job at the laundry is boring, but she'll never leave it. She won't even move in with her best friend Joe Donnelly because she's "used" to living the way she does.

 

Peace and Understanding

 

Symbols

 

 RINGS

In "Clay," the characters play games on Hallow's Eve where they pick objects that are supposed to tell them about their future. In these games, picking a ring means getting married, but for Maria, rings represent a future that she wants but can't have.

 

CLAY

In the story's Hallow Eve game, finding a lump of clay means that the player will soon die. But for Maria, this might not mean death in the literal sense. Instead, it might mean the end of her hopes for the future and the total stagnation of her life.

 

BLINDFOLD

In the Hallow Eve game at the Donnelly house, players have to put on blindfolds and choose an object that is said to tell their future. Because of this, blindfolds are linked to knowing the future, and they show that a person has no control over their fate.

 

The family represents Ireland. And the fighting between the two brothers is a symbol of the civil war between Northern and Southern Ireland.

 

 

That Evening Sun

by William Faulkner

 

•      Literary Period: Modernist

•      Genre: Southern Gothic

•      Setting: Jefferson, Mississippi, a fictional town in the fictional county

•      Climax: Nancy, convinced that her husband Jesus is waiting in the ditch outside her house and plans to kill her, persuades the Compson children to come home with her; the group waits anxiously in Nancy’s cabin as footsteps approach outside. These footsteps belong to the Compson children’s father, however, who takes them home, leaving Nancy alone in her cabin.

•      Protagonist: Nancy (who is a static and round character)

•      Antagonist: Jesus

•      Point of View: First person limited; the story is narrated by the adult Quentin Compson, who is looking back on his childhood

Characters

 

The narrator of "That Evening Sun," Quentin Compson, tells the story as an adult looking back on his childhood memories of Nancy, the black servant who worked for the Compson family and was fated to die.

 

Nancy is the Compson family's black servant who fills in for Dilsey when she is sick. Because of her race and social condition, Nancy is very poor and has to work as a prostitute. Nancy is scared that her husband, Jesus, is waiting in the ditch outside her house and wants to kill her. Nancy is pregnant with a baby from a white man, and she feels like she can't protect herself from Jesus.

Caddy Compson

 

Jason Compsson is the youngest of the Compson children. He is only about four years old when the story takes place.

 

Mr. Compson is Quentin, Caddy, and Jason's father. He is a rich white man, and Nancy and Dilsey work for him as servants. Even though Mr. Compson is kind to Nancy (he lets her stay in the house one night and walks her home when she is afraid of Jesus), he treats her with rudeness and disregard.

 

Jesus, Nancy's violent husband, is a threatening character throughout the story. Jesus, who carries a razor, says he will kill the man who got Nancy pregnant, and Mr. Compson has told Jesus to stay away from their property. Even though Jesus was violent, the reader does feel some sympathy for him.

 

Mrs. Compson

 

Mr. Stovall

 

Themes

 

RACISM AND SEGREGATION

In "That Evening Sun," the story takes place in the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi in the early 1900s. Even though slavery ended in 1862, black people still didn't have civil rights and faced a lot of racism at the time of the story. They often worked as servants for the same white families who had owned their grandparents as slaves. The tragic way Faulkner writes about Nancy, a black servant who works for the white Compson family and also as a prostitute, shows how racial segregation hurts people. Faulkner's story shows how the effects of slavery continued for a long time after it was abolished. It also shows that racial segregation is bad for everyone, including white people.

 

Lack of Understanding

 

NAIVETY, IGNORANCE, AND NOSTALGIA

Faulkner uses the innocent views of the children to show that racial categorization is childish and to criticize the nostalgic way that many white people, including Quentin, came to see the south as black people won more rights in society.

  

FEAR AND VULNERABILITY

In "That Evening Sun," Nancy is shown to be a weak character in several ways. Because black people did not have civil rights at this time, no one can help her. She is physically more vulnerable to men's threats because she is a woman, and she is also vulnerable because she is poor and has to make a living any way she can.

 

Symbols

 

 THE DITCH

The ditch in front of Nancy's cabin comes to represent the difference in race between the black and white characters in the story. The ditch divides the part of town where white people live from "Negro Hollow," where black characters like Nancy and Dilsey live.

 

DARKNESS

In "That Evening Sun," the darkness is a symbol of Nancy's fear and the unspoken horror of death that lies behind what happens. Nancy is afraid of the dark, especially the dark road outside her cabin, which she thinks is where her husband Jesus is waiting to kill her.

 

 

Young Goodman Brown

 

•      Genre: Short story, allegory

•      Setting: 17th century Salem, Massachusetts

•      Climax: When Goodman Brown calls on Faith to resist the devil

•      Antagonist: The devil, the hypocrisy of the Puritans

•      Point of View: Third person

 

Characters

 

Goodman Brown:  Goodman is a young man from Salem, Massachusetts. He is married to Faith, whom he thinks is the best and pure person in the world. He wants to meet the devil, so he goes into the woods in the middle of the night. The devil shows him that all the respected Puritans Goodman has looked up to are actually hypocrites and devil worshippers and that Faith is also tempted by the devil. Even if Goodman's adventure is just a dream, it ruins his life and makes him doubt his faith, his family, and his community. He lives to be old and dies a very unhappy person.

 

Faith: At first, Faith, Goodman Brown's young wife, seems to be the picture of innocence, as shown by the pink ribbons on her cap. Goodman thinks she is an angel and that her name, "Faith," fits her well.

The Devil: The devil first appears as Goodman's grandfather, carrying a staff that looks like a snake. He later comes back as a dark figure. He meets Goodman Brown in the woods and shows him how all the Puritan leaders he admires are lying.

The father of Goodman Brown, died before the story began. Goodman Brown thinks he sees his father's face in the smoke at the devil's conversion ceremony, telling him to worship the devil.

 

Themes

 

THE HYPOCRISY OF PURITANISM

Hawthorne sets "Young Goodman Brown" in the New England town of Salem, where the infamous Witch Trials happened and where the Puritans tried to make a religious society with strict morals and religious norms. The Puritans thought that God chose some people to go to heaven and that those people can be recognized by how moral and religious they are. People can't earn their way to heaven by doing good things, but if they are part of the elect, they will naturally do good things.

 

LOSING FAITH AND INNOCENCE

In the story "Young Goodman Brown," a young man named Goodman Brown loses his innocent faith in religion. Goodman Brown loses his innocence when he has a vivid dream in which he goes into a dark forest and sees all the faithful people in his life gathered around a fire for a witches' conversion ceremony, with the devil watching from above.

 

NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL

Hawthorne uses the forest to show how wild and scary nature is, which is very different from the religious and orderly town of Salem.

 

SAINTS VS. SINNERS

The Puritan religion said that everyone on earth was either a bad person who was going to hell or a good person who was going to heaven.

 

FAMILY AND INDIVIDUAL CHOICE

Young Goodman Brown talks about many generations of the Brown family, including both Goodman Brown's ancestors and his children and grandchildren. Goodman Brown has to decide if he wants to do what his ancestors did, for better or for worse, or if he wants to do things his way and break with family tradition.

 

Symbols

 

FAITH'S PINK RIBBONS

In the first few paragraphs of the story, when Faith tries to get Goodman Brown to stay home, Hawthorne draws attention to her pink ribbons. The pink ribbons are a sign of faith and purity.

 

THE DEVIL'S SERPENT STAFF

When Goodman Brown meets the man Hawthorne later says is the devil, Hawthorne points out that the man's staff looks like a black snake and almost moves like a real snake. The man's staff strongly suggests that he is evil and supernatural. It also connects "Young Goodman Brown" to the Bible story about how a snake tried to get Adam and Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge.