American Flashcards
Summary of Moby Dick?
Herman Melville (1819-1891)
He was born in New York City. He is an American Novelist, Short Story writer and poet.
Moby Dick (1851)
It was published in London as ‘The Whale’ and later in New York as ‘Moby Dick; or The Whale’
Plot
It starts with the dialogue “Call me Ishmael.” The narrator is Ishmael, a voyager who is trying to find meaning in his final Voyage on a ship called Pequod. The captain of the ship is Ahab. Ishmael and Queequeg recognize that Ahab is getting mad. Ahab’s first meet is always against his bad behaviour. As told by the owner of the vessel, Peleg and Bildad, Ahab had an accident with a large whale. He lost his leg in that accident, and he is still recovering from that. The whale was named Moby Dick. In the present journey, Ahab is determined to find and kill Moby Dick.
Later in the journey, many problems occur. Queequeg becomes ill. A coffin is built as they believe he may die in the end. The coffin later becomes the saviour of Ishmael as he uses it as a boat to have himself. Ahab comes to know through a prophecy that he is going to die.
They eventually find Moby Dick, but in return, the ship is destroyed by the whale. Moby Dick kills everyone except Ishmael. Ishmael uses the coffin to save himself as he is picked by some other ship called Rachel.
Summary of The Scarlet Letter?
Nathanial Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Born in Salem, Massachusetts. He was an American novelist and a short story writer.:
The Scarlet Letter: A Romance.
It is a Historical fiction published in 1850.
Plot
It is about Hester Prynne, who had an affair that resulted in a daughter named Pearl. The novel is set in Massachusetts Bay Colony during the years 1642 to 1649. The novel tells the story of Hester, who is trying to lead a life with dignity after the incident. She wants to find the man, who is the father of her child and get him punished for the act due to which her life is ruined. Her husband sent her to America but never came himself. They believe that he must have lost in the sea. She had an affair with someone else and gave birth to a child. She is not ready to reveal who her lover is.
She is going to get punished for her adultery. She has the Scarlet Letter ‘A’ attached to her breast to shame her publicly for her shameful act.
Her husband, who calls himself Roger Chillingworth, gets settled in Boston as a Medicine practitioner. Only Hester knows about his real identity Hester and her Pearl live in a small cottage in the outer area. Arthur Dimmesdale, a young minister helps the mother and daughter when the authorities want to separate them. Chillingworth stays with Dimmesdale to aid him when he later becomes ill due to psychological issues. He also wants to find out the details about Hester from him.
It is revealed that Dimmesdale was the father of Pearl. Dimmesdale and Hester decide to leave for Europe to live with their daughter and she removes her tag. Pearl doesn’t recognize her without the tag. Chillingworth plans to be on the same ship as them. Dimmesdale confesses publicly about the scarlet letter attached to his chest and dies.
Chillingworth dies after a year without revenge. Hester and Pearl leave Boston and return home after many years with the scarlet letter and resumes her charitable work. Pearl is married to a European aristocrat. Hester is buried alongside her lover Dimmesdale.
Summary of The Old Man and the Sea?
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
He was an American Journalist, novelist and short story writer. He won the Nobel prize in 1954.
The Old Man and the Sea
Plot
It is a story about an old fisherman Santiago and his search for a large fish called Marlin. In the beginning, he is not able to find the fish for 84 days. He is considered to be unlucky by other fishermen. They call him ‘salao’. His apprentice Manolin is not permitted by his parents to fish along with him because of his unluckiness. They tell him to fish along with those who are successful. Manolin goes to Santiago’s house every night. He talks with him about many things including his favourite baseball player Joe Di’Maggio.
Santiago plans to go deep into the Gulf Stream to the north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish so that his bad luck with fishing ends. He catches the marlin fish after catching a small tune. Santiago tries to tire the fish as it is fighting hard to get the hook off. In the night Santiago cuts his cheek when he is down to defend the fish from going off, but he doesn’t give up. The fish cuts his hand as well. He sees the fish and it is the largest marlin that he has seen. He eats the dolphin and in the night the fish hurts his hand again. In the battle, he tries to kill the fish and keeps them at the side of his boat.
A Mako shark attacks the corps before he could kill the fish and destroys it. The old man fights with the shark. He defends the fish from getting eaten by other sharks as well thinking whether he sinned by killing it. He then thinks that he must struggle as a man against nature. The sharks keep eating the fish while he goes back to the harbour. In the end, only the skeleton is left. Only the head and the tail remains of the fish. He becomes extremely tired and sleeps immediately. Manolin comes and tells him that his luck will be back again if he fishes with him. The old man dreams about his lions at the end.
Summary of A Farewell to Arms?
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
The novel was serialized first in Scribner Magazine from May 1929 to October 1929. It was published in the form of a book in September 1929.
Plot
It is a novel about a love affair between the expatriate Fredrick Henry, an American Soldier and Catherine Barkley, an English nurse in Italy. The novel is set during World War I. Initially, he thinks she is a little mad due to her fiancé’s death in the war, but he keeps feeling lonely when he is not with her. When he goes to the war, a shell explodes nearby which kills one and wounds, Fredrick, seriously in the head and legs. He meets Catherine in the hospital and realizes he is in love with her. They make love with each other in the hospital.
Henry will have to wait for six months before his mutilated knee can be operated. Another doctor named Valentini is ready to operate the next morning when Fredrick protests about the delay. He wants to marry Catherine, but she believes that they are married privately. She tells him that she is pregnant. He first hesitates but decides to have the child. He goes to the war again leaving her behind and she tells him that she will be fine.
Germans enter Italy and ask them to retreat. Fredrick shoots one of the sergeants when they ignore to help him to cut brush to support the wheel when he is stuck. Aymo is killed, ironically by the Italians. Italian officers arrest him thinking that he is one of the deserters running away from the war. He jumps into the river and changes his clothes. He has no more obligations and he is free. He says farewell to the arms.
He goes to Milan and finds out that Catherine along with Helen Ferguson has gone to Stresa. He feels the happiest in her company. Hotel owners warn him of the arrest. They row across using a boat and are stopped by the Swiss authorities where they claim that they are cousins enjoying the winter sports. They go to Montreux. They leave for Lausanne for her Caesarean delivery. The child dies and Catherine is on the death bed. Fredrick being fearful of her death remembers some ants on the top of a burning log. He remembers throwing water on the log to save them which ended in steaming them.
Catherine tells him that she hates death and dies. He removes everyone from there as he wants her funeral to be private. After that, he goes back to the hotel.
Summary of Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
Harriet Beecher (1811-1896)
Born in Litchfield, Connecticut
She was the seventh child of Calvinist Reverend Lyman Beecher. She spends her earlier days in religious schools. She taught in Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati and got married to Professor Calvin E. Stowe, a Biblical Scholar.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851)
It was serialized first in an abolitionist journal, The National Era, of Washington D.C.
She also wrote novels like The Minister’s Wooing (1859), Oldtown Folks (1869), Sam Lawson’s Fireside Stories (1871) etc
Its publication was called, “The most sensational event in the world history of the novel”
It was Dramatized in 1852 by George L. Aiken. Abraham Lincoln met her and said, ‘So you’re the little lady who wrote the book that caused the war.”
She also published A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) which talked about the real events from which the novel was inspired.
Plot
Arthur Shelby is the master of Shelby Plantation in Kentucky. She has his wife Emily, his son George who live a religious life having affection for the slaves as well who are working there. Uncle Tom is a negro who is the agent of the Shelby’s. His wife Aunt Chloe is like a family member to them and she cooks well.
Mr Shelby had to sell Uncle Tom to a slave trader Dan Haley due to his debts. He also sells Harry, who is the five-year-old son of Eliza and George Harris. George tries to escape to Canada to avoid being sold. Later, when Eliza discovers Mr Shelby’s plans of selling her son, she goes to a village where she stays in an inn to escape through the ice-caked river. Haley follows her and she escapes leaping from one ice cake to tEmile he other to the Ohio side. Senator Bird helps her although he voted against the shelter of escaping slaves. A Southern, who believes that slavery is a sin and freed his slaves takes them to the house of Rachel and Simeon Halliday who are members of the Quaker settlement. They unite her with her husband George who has armed himself as a Spaniard.
Haley uses the slave hunters Loker and Marks to try to hunt for the slaves. They encounter Loker but hurls him into a chasm and flee to Canada on a boat.
Uncle Tom has to take the leave with a heavy heart from his crying wife and children. He goes to New Orleans with Haley. He sees how slaves are treated badly and end their lives due to separation from their families. He makes friends with the little Evangeline who is rescued by Tom when she is falling into the river. Her father Augustine St. Clare buys Tom and they go to their house. She has her cousin Ophelia as the housekeeper. Tom has a decent life here as Eva is good natures and loving. However, Ophelia is selfish. Eva becomes pale due to bad health and dies in the end. She asks St. Clair to free Tom. St. Clair dies when he tries to stop the fight between two men. Marie, his wife decides to sell the slave although her husband didn’t want that.
Tom along with Emmeline is bought by Simon Legree, a plantation owner. He forces Tom to work harder and uses Emmeline for his pleasure. He is whipped by Legree’s slaves. Emmeline becomes friends with Lagree’s mistress Cassy who tries to save her from Legree. She convinces Legree that the attic is haunted and live with Emmeline where he can’t come.
Uncle Tom refuses to divulge the hiding place of the girls and is wounded badly. He is visited by George Shelby on his death bed. He dies forgiving Legree and blessing George. George hits Legree down and buries Tom. He helps Emmeline and Cassy to escape, meeting a French woman Madame de Thoux. She is searching for her brother George Harris. Cassy realizes that Eliza is her daughter. They all go to Canada and meet George and Eliza. Legree dies after becoming mad. George Harris goes to Nigeria with her family to help his race.
About Mark Twain?
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910) Born in Florida, Missouri. His family went to Hannibal, Missouri. His father was a merchant who was an unsuccessful lawyer before. His father died in 1846. Sam’s schooling was over when he was twelve and became an apprentice at a printer’s. He learnt to navigate a ship from Horace Bixby. He became a miner and a journalist and finally a writer. He got his first recognition from his story, ‘Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog’ (1865) He moved to Hartford after marrying Olivia Langdon and wrote The Adventure of Tom Sawyer(1876), Life on the Mississippi (1883) and The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn(1885)
Summary of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer?
The Adventure of Tom Sawyer (1876)
Plot
Tom Sawyer is a young boy belonging to St. Petersburg, Missouri. He is a rogue who doesn’t like studying. He is punished to clean the fence by his aunt and he pretends to like it very much so that his friends help him do that by giving him money. He does a lot of mischief by getting yellow tickets by trade without memorizing the Bible. He also releases a bug on a dog.
He feels fascinated towards Becky Thatcher and sits next to her, though his teachers whip him for that. She becomes her fiancé after he proposes to her. He tells her that he has been engaged before she leaves him which makes him angry.
He is more interested in becoming a pirate or mocking a battle than studying. He goes to a graveyard with Huckleberry Finn. They have a dead cat to surprise the ghost. They meet grave robbers instead Injun Joe puts his knife into the doctor and then into Muff. He convinces Muff that it was he who killed the doctor. The boys run away and promise not to tell about that to anyone. Muff Porter is arrested for murder but they don’t reveal what they saw. Tom goes to Jackson’s island with Huck and Joe to swim and fish. They see people searching for them and return. Tom sees her aunt crying for him and wants to go back when he hears about a funeral service for him. They walk down when the service is happening which makes everyone happy.
Tom tells the court that he saw Injun killed the doctor. Injun Joe escape and Muff is free. Tom digs to find a treasure with Huck Finn. They hear voices while going to a haunted house. It was Injun who finds out few thousand dollars and gold coins while digging. He removes the treasure from there. Injun Joe is located and Huck Finn stand guard to see where the Indian is doing. He hears that they are planning to rob Widow Douglas and kill her. Huck asks for aid, but they run away.
Becky, who is united with Tom, separated from him in a picnic after entering a cave. They are without food and light for three days. Injun Joe comes there with light. He doesn’t recognize Tom and runs away. Tom finds out the way with a gleam of light and returns to his parents with Becky. Injun Joe is trapped in the cave. Tom, along with Huck find the treasure in the cave. They reveal their heroic deed and give one dollar a day for that. However, Huck is not happy living with the widow and going to school. He leaves her and Tom is wishful of becoming a robber along with Huck Finn.
Summary of The Adventure of Huckleberry Finns?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Plot
Huckleberry Finn lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri. He is thirteen years old and lives with Widow Douglas. She along with her sister Miss Watson tries to civilize him. He is forced to learn spellings and to pray properly. He enjoys the company of Tom Sawyer and finds out a treasure. He tells everyone that he has given his money to Judge Thatcher. “Pap” Finn catches him and keeps him captive in a prison in a cabin. Huck is beaten up by his drunken father and decides to run away from there. He uses the tunnel to escape and shoots a pig. He smashes the door and cuts the head of the pig to make it appear that he has been killed by a thief. He goes to Jackson’s Island near Hannibal on a Canoe. He listens to a search party trying to find his body. He finds out Miss Watson’s Negro slave Jim near a campfire. Jim tells him that he is running away as she wanted to sell him. They fish together and go around the island and find a dead man.
He becomes a girl to explore the place. A farm woman recognizes that he is a boy when she throws a lump of lead into his lap which he catches with his legs together not apart. He tells her that he is an apprentice and with him, there is a slave on whom there is a reward of $300 thinking that he killed Huck. They also suspect Pap for the murder.
He plans to go out of the island with whatever they had. They go towards Cairo, Illinois into the mouth of the Ohio River. They survive on chicken or watermelon which they find in the farms. They encounter a steamboat with two bandits who have another bandit as a captive who will drown when they leave the boat. Huck and Jim help the captive and abandon those who were planning to abandon the captive. Huck apologize when Jim finds out that he is leaving him to go around. He convinces those who come to search for slaves that his father is down with chickenpox and they give him money.
Their raft is cut into two by a steamboat when they cross Cairo. Huck escapes by diving but can’t find Jim. He meets Grangerfords who are kind and wealthy and are involved with Shepherdsons whose one of the boys is in love with a Grangerford girl. Buck and his father are killed along with many Shepherdsons. Huck feels guilty about the incident as he helped the two lovers by delivering a letter from one lover to the other where they were planning to elope.
Jim escapes and meets Huck and return to the river to board a raft. They meet a fugitive being chased by a mob. One of them sells medicines and another tells fortune to get money. At one time he pretends to a King and later tells the crowd that he is a pirate who is converted by the preachers and gets contributions for the crowd to convert other pirates.
A drunk man named Boggs gives harmless threats to Colonel Sherburn, who shoots him. It follows with a mob lynching him. However, he tells them it needs a man to lynch someone and not a mob. Only if the crowd comes in the night with masks, they can lynch him.
The King plans to get the property of Peter Wilks by pretending to be Harvey along with Huck as a servant. They deceive the girls but Huck tells them the truth and the King’s plan fails, and he had to run away to avoid lynching as the real brothers return.
Huck writes to Miss Watson, believing that it is wrong to let a slave escape after he finds the whereabouts of Jim, but he tears up the letter, believing that he will go to hell.
He is mistaken to be Tom Sawyer by Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps. Tom arrives and declared himself to be Sid Sawyer, Tom’s brother. Tom plans with Huck to free Jim with a style which he has learnt in the literature of escape. He writes letters of warning to help Jim escape, but the neighbours get alert and Tom is hit in the leg by a bullet. Jim stays and doesn’t escape until Huck comes with a doctor. Miss Watson has died and has freed Jim, reveals Tom. Tom pretended the whole plan just to have fun. Aunt Polly comes to know about the identity of Tom and Huck. Huck comes to know that ‘Pap’ Finn is dead. He was the dead man in the floating house, whom Jim didn’t let Huck see. Aunt Sally wants to adopt and civilize him, but Huck doesn’t seem to be ready for that.
About F. Scott Fitgerald?
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota to Irish and Maryland-England parents. He went to Princeton where he was more interested in other activities rather than studying. He joined the army as a second lieutenant. He wrote his first novel in training camps. He married Zelda after the publication of his novel This Side of Paradise in 1920. He became a drunkard and Zelda was mentally unstable. Zelda went to the mental institution where she died in a fire. He died of a heart attack in 1940 when he was only forty-four.
The Great Gatsby (1925)
It is considered to be the ‘Great American Novel’ by many critics like T.S. Eliot.
Plot
The narrator Nick Carraway lives nearby his neighbour Jay Gatsby in Long Island, New York. Gatsby lives in a mansion and Carraway lives in a small cottage. George and Myrtle Wilson live near a “valley of ashes” where there is a billboard about Dr. T.J Ecleburg, an oculist.
Nick serves in World War I and returns to work as a bond Salesman. He has his cousin Daisy and learns from Jordan that Tom, her husband is not faithful to her. Nick, along with Tom and Myrtle, his mistress, goes to a party where Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose for mentioning Daisy’s name.
Nick goes to Gatsby’s lavish parties, where Gatsby himself wants to get Daisy back, as he lost her love after the war. Daisy becomes his mistress with Nick and Jordan’s help and both are happy. Tom and George find out that their spouses are unfaithful. George has no idea that Tom has a relationship with his wife. Gatsby demands Daisy to leave Tom in the presence of Tom. Although Daisy loves Gatsby, she cannot say that she never loved Tom. Gatsby is shattered by Daisy’s silence when Tom accuses him.
Tom is jealous when Daisy wants to ride with Gatsby while he has to go with others. Myrtle Wilson dies in the accident under Gatsby’s car. Tom goes to the garage to discover his mistress to be dead. He tells something in Wilson’s ears that is revealed only in the end. Nick comes to know that it was Daisy who crushed Myrtle and not Gatsby, but he wants to accept all the blame. He is killed by George Wilson by a bullet wound after which Wilson kills himself.
Gatsby’s funeral is joined by his father and no one else shows up. Tom reveals that he and Daisy both were messed up people who broke things up and to be cleaned up by others. He told Wilson that Gatsby killed Myrtle. Nick breaks his relationship with Jordon.
Summary of Sound and the Fury?
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
Born in New Albany, Mississippi, USA.
He won the Nobel Prize in 1949
Sound and the Fury (1929)
Published by Cape and Smith.
Plot
In the first section, the narrator who has an intellectual disability is called looney or idiot by many. He cannot speak properly and moans to communicate. He cannot know the difference between past and present. He thinks all-time to be present and narrates all the events from the past as present events. The incidents narrated by him are from 1898 to 1928.
In the first scene, Benjy and Luster, who is his caretaker, try to find a lost quarter near a golf course. Benjy was caught when he is trying to climb the fence. He remembers Caddy sending him through the fence. He also remembers going to a graveyard to see his father and brother’s grave in 1912. They return to Campson house where Miss Quentin, Caddy’s sister is embracing a boy which reminds him of Caddy embracing a boy on the same swing in 1908 or 1909. He also remembers his castration and Caddy having a physical relationship for the first time.
In the second section, Quentin goes to Harvard University in 1910 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At present, he is attempting to commit suicide and breaks his grandfather’s watch and write letters to people whom he loved. He buys two six-pound Flatirons which he would use to drown himself in the Charles River.
He remembers Caddy’s pregnancy and marriage to another man, Herbert Head. His declaration to his father that he committed incest with Caddy.
In the third section, set in Yoknapatawpha Country in 1928 the narrative is linear with Jason going to Campson House. He describes Miss Quentin be like her mother. Caddy sends $200 to Miss Quentin which Jason keeps for himself. Miss Quentin learns about her uncle using her money later in 1928.
In the fourth section in 1928, Dilsey, the black servant of Compson tells him that someone went to Jason’s bedroom and it is discovered that Miss Quentin stole the money sent by her mother. Jason couldn’t catch her. Next Morning they go to Dilsey’s church where Compson begins to cry saying that he saw the beginning and now he will see the ending.
In 1946, an Appendix of the novel was written where it talked about the fates of the surviving characters. Benjy went to an asylum in 1933. Jason went to an apartment above the supply store and Caddy went to Paris.
Summary of the Beloved?
Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
Born in Lorain, Ohio in the USA.
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, famous as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor.
The Bluest Eye was published in 1970. It was her first novel. She won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon.
Beloved (1987)
The novel is inspired by Margaret Garner, an African-American slave who escaped slavery in Kentucky in 1856 to Ohio. Morrison read the story “A Visit to the Slave Mother who Killed Her Child” in an article published in the American Baptist and reproduced in The Black Book, a miscellaneous compilation of black history and culture that she edited in 1974.
The novel won the Pulitzer prize in 1988. It was adapted in a movie in 1998 with Oprah Winfrey. It was voted as the best work from 1981 t0 206 by writers in A New York Times survey.
Plot
Sethe was a slave who is now living in Ohio with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver. Howard and Buglar, her sons ran away eight years ago. She believes that is because of a ghost. The ghost is introduced in the first chapter with the line ‘124 was spiteful. Full of baby’s venom’’. The ghost is the child that Sethe killed to save her from slavery. Paul also worked on the same plantation and is haunted by his past.
A young woman named Beloved also comes to the house. She knows many things that Sethe’s lost daughter would know. Paul D leaves after knowing that Sethe killed her daughter.
Sethe becomes obsessed with Beloved after losing her job. Beloved is pregnant and she becomes friends with Denver. She gets food from the people around her. Sethe mistakes the person to take Denver to work as a schoolteacher and attacks him with an ice pick. Beloved disappears and Paul D returns to take care of Sethe.
Summary of The Color Purple?
Alice Walker (1944-)
Born in Eatonton, Georgia in the USA.
Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist.
The Color Purple won her the National Book Award for hardcover fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The Color Purple (1982)
It is an epistolary novel. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983. It was adapted to a film in 1985 by Stephan Spielberg with Whoopi Goldberg
Plot
Celie is the narrator of the novel. She is a fourteen-year-old girl and lives in Georgie in a village. She starts writing a letter to God as her father Alphonso keeps beating her and rapes her. She has been pregnant with his child once and gave birth to a girl who he killed, according to her. She has another child stolen by her father. Her mother dies and her father brings another wife. Mister wants to marry Nettie, but offered Celie. Nettie also comes to her after marriage. After Mister’s advances, Nettie runs away and Celie assumes she is not alive. Mister’s sister Kate tells her to fight against Mister. Harpo falls in love with Sofia and Celie is not allowed to see her. Sofia married Harpo after becoming pregnant. Celie is surprised by what Sofia did and supports her against her husband and his son Harpo.
Sofia fights with Harpo’s new girlfriend Squeak. She knocks the mayor down when he slaps him for not agreeing to work as a maid at his house. She is sent to jail and sentenced to work as a maid for twelve years at Mayor’s house.
Shug comes back with a new husband but shared her bed with Celie having a sexual relationship with her. She has seen many letters by Mister hiding in the letter mail. They find letters written by Nettie to Celie. She feels enraged with Mister so much so that she wants to kill him.
Nettie met Samuel and Corrine and went to Africa for Missionary work. Corrin is suspicious about her affair with Samuel and doesn’t allow her to do work. Nettie comes to know that the children that Samuel has adopted are children of Celie. Alphonso is their stepfather and their real father was a store owner beaten up by the white men.
She tells that Nettie is the aunt of the two children which she believes before her death. Alphonso accepts being their stepfather. Sofia is released six months earlier from her term and Celie curses Mister during the dinner and decides with Shug will go to Tennessee and Squeak also joins in. Celie designs pants and makes them her business. She goes back to see that Mister has reformed himself and Alphonso has died. She restarts her journey with Mister. Sofia also remarries Harpo and works with Celie. Nettie returns to America.
Summary of Their Eyes Were Watching God?
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Zora Neale Hurston was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker.
Born in Notasulga, Albama in the USA. She studied in Columbia University.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
TIME included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923
Plot
Janie Crawford is a black woman living in Eatonville, Florida. She has returned to the city after a long time encouraging gossips about her and her husband Tea Cake. His friend Pheoby Watson is with her and finds out what happened. She tells her story stating that it was her grandmother who raised her after her mother left her and ran away. Her granny wanted to marry her as soon as possible and finds Logan Killick who is much older that Janie. Logan does not love her and she finds a solace in Joe Starks a young man as she runs away to marry him.
Joddy becomes the mayor in Eatonville and she becomes bored with the monotonous life led by her politician husband. He doesn’t want her to talk to other “common” people and she should behave like a Mayor’s wife. When Joddy insults her looks she rips him to shreds in front of people and he beats her up. The marriage is over and she goes away to return to see Joddy on his death bed and he died. She feels free and meets Tea Cake, who is twelve years younger than her comes she falls for him. She marries him and leaves for Jacksonville.
In the new marriage, Tea Cake steals her money but returns saying that it was a weak decision on his part. They go to Everglades where they work in the harvest season. Tea cake is bitten by a dog and becomes mad due to rabies and believes she is cheating him. He fires a pistol at her but she survives and has to kill him in defence. She is not found guilty by the white jury. She returns to Eatonville where her neighbours speculate about her. She tells her story to Pheoby and feels at peace with herself.
