British: 18th And 19th British Prose And Novels Flashcards
18th Century Novel
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (1713 – 1768) Laurence Sterne was an Anglo-Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics. Sterne died in London after years of fighting tuberculosis.
Tristram Shandy will very likely appear on your exam, and I here proivde what I think are the passages most likely to appear.
Tristram Shandy
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1760, and seven others following over the next 10 years. It was not always highly thought of by other writers (Samuel Johnson responded that, “Nothing odd will do long”[1]), but its bawdy humour was popular with London society.
Sterne’s text is filled with allusions and references to the leading thinkers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Pope, Locke, and Swift were all major influences on Sterne and Tristram Shandy. It’s easy to see that the satires of Pope and Swift formed much of the humour of Tristram Shandy, but Swift’s sermons and Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding contributed ideas and frameworks that Sterne explored throughout his novel. Sterne’s engagement with the science and philosophy of his day was extensive, however, and the sections on obstetrics and fortifications, for instance, indicate that he had a grasp of the main issues then current in those fields.
Four influences on Tristram Shandy overshadow all others: Rabelais, Cervantes, Montaigne’s Essays and John Locke. Sterne had written an earlier piece called A Rabelaisian Fragment, which indicates his familiarity with the work of the French monk. But the earlier work is not needed to see the influence of Rabelais on Tristram Shandy, which is evident in multiple allusions, as well as in the overall tone of bawdy humor centered on the body. The first scene in Tristram Shandy, where Tristram’s mother interrupts his father during the sex that leads to Tristram’s conception, testifies to Sterne’s debt to Rabelais.
The shade of Cervantes is similarly present throughout Sterne’s novel. The frequent references to Rosinante, the character of Uncle Toby (who resembles Don Quixote in many ways) and Sterne’s own description of his characters’ “Cervantic humour,” along with the genre-defying structure of Tristram Shandy, which owes much to the second part of Cervantes’ novel, all demonstrate the influence of Cervantes.
The novel also makes brilliant use of John Locke’s theories of empiricism, or the way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the “association of ideas” that come to us from our five senses. Sterne is by turns respectful and satirical of Locke’s theories, using the association of ideas to construct characters’ “hobby-horses,” or whimsical obsessions, that both order and disorder their lives in different ways. It also owes a significant intertextual debt to Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, Swift’s Battle of the Books, and the Scriblerian collaborative work, The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus.
The novel, as it stands, is seen by some as an elaborate and ingeniously-executed pun. Today, the novel is seen as a forerunner of later stream of consciousness, self-reflexive and postmodern writing.
Characters to associate with Tristram Shandy include Walter and Toby who together account for the bulk of the book’s ideas and actions.
A few famous passages:
It begins:
I WISH either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider'd how much depended upon what they were then doing; -- that not only the production of a rational Being was con- cern'd in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind ; -- and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost : ---- Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, ---- I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.
Another famous line:
“writing, when properly managed, is but another name for conversation,”
Overview
18th & 19th Century British Prose
18th & 19th Century British Prose
This is a huge section considering it covers the real birth of the novel, as well as the explosion of Victorian lit. Chances are that ETS is going to demand little of you in terms of knowing 18th century British novels, but they will want you to know your Brontes and your Hardy. Remember: the best way to study for long works like these is to memorize the names of the characters and a brief plot outline. I try to provide those things here in as concise a manner as possible.
18th Century - novel 19th Century - novel *Laurence Sterne Fanny Burney Henry Fielding George Eliot Daniel DeFoe George Meredith Samuel Richardson Charles Dickens Gothic Novel Samuel Butler
- Charlotte Bronte
- Emily Bronte
*Jane Austen 18th Century - prose *Thomas Hardy (half done) William Godwin William Thackeray
Elizabeth Gaskell
*19th Century Essayists
18th Century Novel
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
There are probably two personalities that epitomize the 18th century novel – Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson. Fielding is remarkable his attitude on the novel differed so greatly from Richardson’s. Whereas Richardson’s novel attempts to promote public morality through the depiction of archetypally virtusous and villainous men and women, Fielding portrays a world of mixed morality, in which right and wrong are not always clear. Where Richardson is sober, Fielding is cavalier and hilarious. Fielding’s most noteworthy books are Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. For the GRE exam, you will likely need to recognize Tom Jones and possibly know something about the public differences between Fielding and Richardson.
Shamela and Joseph Andrews
From a literary point of view, by far the most important new means of earning a living that Fielding explored after he was effectively barred from the stage was the writing of prose fiction. He moved in this direction, revealing a unique and inimitable, genre-enhancing range of talents in the process, more gradually than he had in taking on the law and journalism and initially in a negatively parodic way, stimulated by his disapproval of the moral and social implications of Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and its critical and clerical over-praising. An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, In which, the many notorious Falsehoods and Misrepresentations of a Book called “Pamela”, are exposed and refuted (2 April 1741) is a minor masterpiece of ironization that its author never acknowledged. In it Fielding turns Pamela into Shamela, whose amoral manipulation of Mr. B[ooby] into marriage and cuckoldry are revealed in her ”actual,” semi-literate letters, which are sent by a sensible clergyman to one of the clerical fools who moved in part by its pornographic tendencies, had cried “Pamela” up as an ultimate guide to morality. His first novel, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, begins with a transgendering of Pamela’s resistance to seduction, in which high comedy is made out of Joseph Andrews’ resistance to losing his virginity out of wedlock. Joseph is thought to be the servant-class-brother of Pamela, who, when we finally meet her, has become Mrs. Booby and a snobbish parvenu.
The title for Pamela comes from Sidney’s Arcadia.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Tom Jones is a long book which is difficult to summarize. The title character, a handsome, brave, generous young man of uncertain parentage and hearty appetites, remains faithful to his beloved in spirit, if not in flesh. The combination of vice and virtue in a fully realized, three-dimensional hero was unusual in English literature of its day. Throughout the lengthy book, the author openly mocks the moral rigidity of fashionable writers and critics while simultaneously acknowledging the frailties of his characters and celebrating their good natures.
Some of the characters include: Tom Jones Sophia Western Blifil Squire Allworthy Lady Bridget
The famous opening words, which have been known to appear on the GRE:
The introduction to the work, or bill of fare to the feast.
An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money. In the former case, it is well known that the entertainer provides what fare he pleases; and though this should be very indifferent, and utterly disagreeable to the taste of his company, they must not find any fault; nay, on the contrary, good breeding forces them outwardly to approve and to commend whatever is set before them. Now the contrary of this happens to the master of an ordinary. Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates, however nice and whimsical these may prove; and if everything is not agreeable to their taste, will challenge a right to censure, to abuse, and to d–n their dinner without controul.
18th Century Novel
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Defoe is unlikely to show up on the exam, though if he does, Moll Flanders is most likely to appear. Unfortunately, I don’t have very good information on either work.
Defoe’s famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), tells of a man’s shipwreck on a desert island and his subsequent adventures.
He also wrote Moll Flanders (1722), a picaresque first-person narration of the fall and eventual redemption of a lone woman in 17th century England. She appears as a whore, bigamist and thief, lives in The Mint, commits adultery and incest, yet manages to keep the reader’s sympathy.
18th Century Novel
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson (1689 –1761) Samuel Richardson was a major 18th century writer best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753).
Richardson had been an established printer and publisher for most of his life when, at the age of 51, he wrote his first novel — and immediately became one of the most popular and admired writers of his time.
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, first published in 1740. It tells in the first person the story of the virtuous lady’s maid Pamela and the modest and agonized delicacy, yet determination, with which she rebuffs and reforms her aristocratic would-be seducer Mr B and is rewarded with marriage to him. Told through Pamela’s probingly introspective letters and diary, Pamela is widely considered a seminal influence on the direction the novel form was to take towards psychological analysis and self-examination.
The heroine, Pamela Andrews, is a maid whose master makes unwanted advances towards her. She rejects him until he shows his sincerity by proposing a fair marriage to her. In the second part of the novel, Pamela attempts to accommodate herself to upper-class society and to build a successful relationship with her husband.
Clarissa
Clarissa is an exceptionally long novel; excepting novel sequences, it may well be the longest novel in the English language. The full volume of its third edition, the edition most extensively revised by Richardson, spans over one million words. The first edition alone contains nearly 969,000 words.
Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become very wealthy only in recent years and is now eager to become part of the aristocracy by acquiring estates and titles through advantageous pairings. Clarissa is forced by relatives to marry a rich but heartless man against her will and, more importantly, against her own sense of virtue. Desperate to remain free, she allows a young gentleman of her acquaintance, Lovelace, to scare her into escaping with him. However, she refuses to marry him, longing — unusually for a girl in her time — to live by herself in peace. Lovelace, in the meantime, has been trying to arrange a fake marriage all along, and considers it a sport to add Clarissa to his long list of conquests. However, as he is more and more impressed by Clarissa, he finds it difficult to keep convincing himself that truly virtuous women do not exist. The continuous pressure he finds himself under, combined with his growing passion for Clarissa, forces him to extremes and eventually he rapes her. Clarissa manages to escape from him, but remains dangerously ill. When she dies, however, it is in the full consciousness of her own virtue, and trusting in a better life after death. Lovelace, tormented by what he has done but still unable to change, dies in a duel with Clarissa’s cousin. Clarissa’s relatives finally realise the misery they have caused, but discover that they are too late and Clarissa has already died.
18th Century Novel
Gothic Novel
Gothic Novel
You will almost certainly have a few questions on the Gothic novel on your exam. Some knowledge of the books below will prepare you for almost any question you are likely to see.
‘Gothic’ came to be applied to the literary genre precisely because the genre dealt with such emotional extremes and dark themes, and because it found its most natural settings in the buildings of this style: Castles, Mansions and Monasteries, often remote, crumbling and ruined. It was a fascination with this architecture and its related art, poetry (see Graveyard Poets) and even landscape gardening that inspired the first wave of gothic novelists: Horace Walpole, whose seminal The Castle of Otranto is often regarded as the first true gothic novel, was obsessed with fake medieval gothic architecture and built his own house Strawberry Hill in that form, sparking off a fashion for gothic revival.
A term to associate with the Gothic novel is gothic explique, which is the logical explanation at the end of the book of an event that at first seems supernatural. This becomes a major component of detective fiction (think Scooby Doo).
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto
Walpole’s landmark work, published in December 1764, purports to be a translation (as the 1765 title page has it) “from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto,” and the events related in it are supposed to have occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. When the story opens, the villainous Manfred, prince of Otranto, in order to get an heir to his estate, has arranged a marriage between his only son, Conrad, and the beautiful Isabella. But on the night before the wedding, Conrad is mysteriously killed (he is crushed by a giant helmet). Lest he should be left without male descendants, Manfred determines to divorce his present wife, Hippolita, who is past childbearing, and marry Isabella himself.
Walpole writes as if by formula. The standard Gothic devices and motifs are all in place: moonlight, a speaking portrait, the slamming of doors, castle vaults, an underground passage, blasts of wind, rusty hinges, the curdling of blood, and above all, in practically every sentence, strong feelings of terror (“Words cannot paint the horror of the princess’s situation . . .”). But Walpole was the inventor of the formula, and his influence — on Beckford, Radcliffe, and Lewis in this topic and then, along with them, on subsequent English fiction (and on literature and films more generally) — is incalculable.
Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian
In Radcliffe’s books, the hero is usually a gentleman of noble birth, likely as not in some sort of disgrace; the heroine, an orphan-heiress, high-strung and sensitive, and highly susceptible to music and poetry and to nature in its most romantic moods. A prominent role is given to the tyrant-villain. He is a man of fierce and morose passions obsessed by the love of power and riches. The villain can usually be counted on to confine the heroine in the haunted wing of a castle because she refuses to marry someone she hates. Whatever the details, Mrs. Radcliffe generally manages the plot and action so that the chief impression is a sense of the young heroine’s incessant danger. On oft-repeated midnight prowls about the gloomy passageways of a rambling, ruined castle, the heroine in a quiver of excitement (largely self-induced) experiences a series of hair-raising adventures and narrow escapes. Her emotional tension is kept to the pitch by a succession of strange sights and sounds . . . and by an assorted array of sliding panels, trap doors, faded hangings, veiled portraits, bloodstained garments, and even dark and desperate characters.
Names to associate with Radcliffe:
The Italian: Vincentio di Vivaldi, Ellena Rosalba, the mysterious monk Schedoni
The Mysteries of Udolpho: Montoni, Emily
M. G. Lewis’s The Monk
The Gothic novel is traditionally divided into two main branches, “terror” and ”horror”, and it is in the latter that The Monk is to be placed. It is one of the most extreme examples of horror Gothic, dealing as it does with such shocking topics as rape, matricide, and incest. In The Monk we see Gothic being taken to its limits – both in terms of subject matter and public acceptability. The storm of controversy the novel created on its publication in 1796 indicates that Lewis had gone well beyond the more sedate story-lines of his avowed inspiration, Anne Radcliffe, the major representative of terror Gothic. Where Radcliffe always provides a natural explanation for ostensibly supernatural phenomena, Lewis revels in the use of the supernatural as a plot device.
The Monk concerns itself with the career of the Capuchin monk Ambrosio, an apparent orphan who has been brought up under the care of his monastic order to become a charismatic preacher, idolised by the population of Madrid. At the start of the narrative Ambrosio is a model of piety, but he proves to be a very brittle character who only too easily succumbs to the temptations of the devil. The devil’s chosen instrument is the young monk Rosario, soon revealed to be a female in disguise (and then later a demon). As Matilda she seduces Ambrosio and becomes his accomplice in the career of sin that he proceeds to embark upon. Even before the seduction Ambrosio reveals himself to be motivated less by piety than pride and vanity, and in the first instance of the narrative’s obsession with perverted sexuality, expresses erotic longings towards a painting of the Virgin Mary (which turns out to be a likeness of Matilda).
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey is a parody of the Gothic novel, and for that reason ETS loves to use it. The story centers around the character of Cahterine Morland, who is an avid devotee of the genre. Invited to spend some time at the Abbey home of the Tilney family, Catherine hopes for and fears all the cliches of the Gothic novel, only to appear foolish before her hosts.
Names to associate with Northanger Abbey: Cahterine Morland, the Allens, Henry Tilney, and John Thorpe.
Catherine Morland is also a fan of Anne Radclife’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Austen novel uses Radcliffe’s for parodic effect.
18th Century Prose
William Godwin
William Godwin (1756–1836) was an English political and miscellaneous writer, considered one of the important precursors of both utilitarian and liberal anarchist thought. He is also famous for the women in his life: he married the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797 and together with her had one daughter, also named Mary, author of Frankenstein, whom he brought up on such strict principles of rational enlightenment that her only possible rebellion was to elope at sixteen with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Caleb Williams
Political Justice condemns all government interference with individual judgment. He claims that over time history has seen gradual progress as knowledge has developed and has spread and as men and women have liberated themselves from their political chains and their subordination to the fraud and imposture of monarchical and aristocratic government and established religion. His optimistic belief in the impotence of government against advancing opinion (which partly glosses and extends Hume’s comment that all government is founded on opinion) is balanced by some sociologically perceptive comments on the baleful influence that certain types of political power have on those who exercise it or are subject to it. These insights are also explored in The Enquirer, but it is in Godwin’s later novels, from Caleb Williams (1794) onward, that it is given its fullest rein. As Godwin indicates in his unpublished essay, ‘On History and Literature’ (1798), literature can be used to show how the cultures and institutions into which we are born come inexorable to shape our lives, leading us to act in ways which destroy our chances of happiness. The six mature novels effectively follow through the critical enterprise launched in Political Justice by their narrative histories of men who are brought to grief by the aristocratic and inegalitarian principles of their societies.
In 1794 appeared his novel, Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams, a novel which further popularized his political and social views of the individual victimized by society. In the Preface, Godwin explained why he had written Caleb Williams:
The following narrative is intended to answer a purpose more general and important than immediately appears upon the face of it. The question now afloat in the world respecting THINGS AS THEY ARE, is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols in the warmest terms the existing constitution of society. . . . It is but of late that the inestimable importance of political principles have been adequately apprehended. It is now known to philosophers that the spirit and character of government intrudes itself into every rank of society. But this is a truth highly worthy to be communicated to persons whom books of philosophy and science are never likely to reach. Accordingly it was proposed in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man.
19th Century Novel
Fanny Burney
Fanny Burney (1752-1840) was an English novelist and diarist. She published her first novel Evelina anonymously in 1778. The revelation of its authorship brought her nearly immediate fame by its narrative and comic power. She published Cecilia in 1782 and Camilla in 1796. Her three major novels, much admired by Jane Austen, are about the entry into the world of a young, beautiful, intelligent but inexperienced girl.
Evelina
Evelina, the title character, is abandoned by her father, Sir John Belmont, who thought that he would receive a fortune from marriage. Evelina’s mother dies in childbirth, and Evelina is raised in seclusion by Mr. Villars, her guardian. When Evelina grows up to be a beautiful and intelligent woman, she travels to London to visit a friend, Mrs. Mirvan. She is introduced to society, falls in love with the handsome Lord Orville. However, her ill-bred relatives, and in particular her vulgar grandmother, Madame Duval, as well as the obstinate attentions of Sir Clement Willoughby frustrate her happiness. To attain her proper station in London society, Evelina’s friends contact Sir Belmont to get him to acknowledge his daughter. Belmont announces that, in fact, he has had his daughter with him since her mother’s death. It turns out that the nurse had passed her own child to Sir Belmont. Belmont discovers the imposition, recognizes Evelina, and she marries Lord Orville.
The novel was a great success in Burney’s own lifetime. Her father was a friend of the leading men of the age, and Frances herself knew most of these distinguished writers and artists. None of her subsequent novels achieved the success of Evelina, but it was very well received, and the novel compares favorably with the early novels of Jane Austen.
19th Century Novel
George Eliot
George Eliot (1819 – 1880) George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, who was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity.
Middlemarch
In Middlemarch, Eliot interweaves the stories of various friends, acquaintances, and relations in the town of Middlemarch. She demonstrates genuine compassion for each of her characters, yet she seeds her portraits with critical—even cynical—assessments of human hypocrisy and weakness. She is particularly tart on the topic of gender relations and the limited role of women.
The central character, Dorothea Brooke, is a beautiful and serious-minded young woman who yearns for knowledge and the power to help others. She rejects a titled young man in favour of the Reverend Edward Casaubon, a middle-aged clergyman who, she imagines, will teach her and engage her in great works. Her marriage proves a terrible mistake, as Casaubon disdains her efforts to assist him in his research, and Dorothea begins to realize the meanness of his intellectual ambitions. Meanwhile, she makes the acquaintance of his poor relation, Will Ladislaw, who truly admires her and who matches her in passion and ambition.
When Casaubon dies suddenly, Dorothea inherits his large fortune and tries to use it for the good of others, despite her indignation on finding, in the terms of his will, that she is specifically forbidden to marry Will Ladislaw. In the end, she gives up the inheritance in order to find true happiness with Will.
Dorothea’s charitable works bring her into contact with Doctor Tertius Lydgate, who plans to build and run a hospital in anticipation of epidemic typhus reaching Middlemarch. Lydgate falls in love with the pretty but impractical Rosamond Vincy; their financial improvidence puts Lydgate in debt to the disreputable attorney Bulstrode, whose attempts to conceal a scandal in his past lead him eventually into real evil. Bulstrode never clears his name but finds true sympathy from his wife; Lydgate becomes a successful-enough London doctor but never achieves happiness at home or scientific greatness.
Meanwhile, Fred Vincy, Rosamond’s irresponsible brother, takes a step down socially and economically—but a step up in terms of integrity and hard work—as he allies himself with the Garth family and finally marries plain but kindhearted Mary Garth. Along with Dorothea, whose pursuit of true love is deemed socially unacceptable, Mary is a possible stand-in for Eliot herself. She is sensible and loving, and when she publishes an historical volume for boys, nobody believes that a woman could have written it.
Virginia Woolf described Middlemarch as “one of the few English novels written for grown up people”.
Silas Marner
Set in the early years of the 19th century, Silas Marner was a weaver and had been since a young man. While living in this industrial town, he was also a highly thought of member of a little Dissenting church. Silas was engaged to be married to a female member of the church and thought his future happiness assured. However, due to the betrayal of a fellow parishioner, who blamed him for a theft that he did not commit, Silas was expelled from the congregation. He found out later that his former fiancee married the man who had betrayed him. Later on, he went to settle in the village of Raveloe, where he lived as a recluse who existed only for work and his precious hoard of money until that money was stolen by a son of Squire Cass, the town’s leading land owner, causing him to become heartbroken. Soon, however, an orphaned child came to Raveloe. She was not known by the people there, but she was really the child of Godfrey Cass, the eldest son of the local Squire. Because the mother was a woman of low birth, Godfrey had refused to clarify her as his wife, and the woman, Molly, went to seek out Godfrey for revenge, but she never made it there and died on the way. Silas named the child Eppie (after his deceased mother Hephzibah) and changed his life completely. Symbolically, Silas lost his material gold only to have it replaced by the golden-haired Eppie. Later in the book, the gold is found and restored. Godfrey wanted to take her back when she was a young woman but she refused to go back with him and his second wife, Nancy Lammeter. At the end, Eppie married a local boy, Aaron, son of Dolly Winthrop.
Adam Bede (1859) Adam Bede is a young workman of twenty-six in the town of Hayslope in Loamshire. He is the foreman of a carpentry shop where his brother, Seth, also works. The novel opens in the workshop with an argument among the men about religion. We learn that Dinah Morris, a Methodist preacher with whom Seth is in love, will speak in the village that evening.
Seth goes to the prayer meeting and afterwards proposes to Dinah, who refuses him. Meanwhile, Adam has gone home and found out from his mother, Lisbeth, that his father, Thias, has gone off drinking instead of finishing a coffin he had contracted for. Working all night, Adam finishes the coffin, and he and Seth deliver it in the morning. On their way home, they find the drowned body of their father in a brook.
Joshua Rann, the parish clerk, informs Mr. Irwine, the local Anglican clergyman, that the Methodists are stirring up dissension in Hayslope. Mr. Irwine and Arthur Donnithorne, grandson and heir of the local landowner, ride over to see Dinah at the Hall Farm, a place tenanted by the Poysers, Dinah’s uncle and aunt. Mr. Irwine speaks to Dinah and is impressed by her religious sincerity. Meanwhile, Arthur flirts with another of the Poysers’ nieces, Hetty Sorrel, and she is greatly flattered by his attentions.
Mr. Irwine informs Dinah of Thias Bede’s death, and she goes to the Bedes’ cottage and comforts Lisbeth. Arthur learns on the same occasion that Hetty will be at the Chase, his manor, in two days’ time, and he places himself so as to meet her in a grove on the grounds. After talking with her, he is ashamed of himself for being attracted to a mere farm girl, but he cannot break the spell and later that day intercepts her again in the same grove and kisses her. Ashamed of his behavior once more, he decides to tell his troubles to Mr. Irwine, hoping that confession will cure his passion. But when he speaks to the clergyman at Broxton parsonage the following morning, he loses his nerve and says nothing about Hetty. Meanwhile, Dinah has encouraged Hetty to come to her if she ever needs help, but Hetty, a thoughtless little thing who feels that no trouble will ever come to her, repulses the offer. Dinah leaves for her home in Snowfield, Stonyshire, the next day.
Thias Bede is buried, and Adam reflects that now he can begin to look forward to marriage; he is in love with Hetty. He goes to the Hall Farm and finds that Hetty seems more friendly towards him than in the past; he doesn’t realize that her thoughts are all of Arthur, and his hopes rise. While visiting Bartle Massey, the local schoolmaster, that evening, he learns that the keeper of the Chase woods has had a stroke and that the job may be offered to him. Adam’s marriage prospects look bright indeed, both from a financial and an emotional viewpoint.
Arthur’s twenty-first birthday arrives, and all the tenants of the estate gather for a grand celebration. There is a round of toasts at dinnertime and everyone wishes the popular Arthur well. Adam is offered the job as keeper of the woods and he accepts it. There are games in which the townspeople compete in the afternoon and a dance in the evening. At the dance, Adam discovers by accident that Hetty is wearing a locket which looks like a lover’s token, but he dismisses the thought that she is interested in another man. The locket, of course, is a gift from Arthur; he and Hetty are carrying on a secret affair.
About three weeks later, Adam happens to be passing through the grove on the Chase grounds when he finds Arthur and Hetty in an embrace. He is furious, starts a fight with Arthur, and knocks him out. When Arthur revives, Adam forces him to promise to write a note to Hetty breaking off the relationship. After much soul-searching, Arthur composes the note and gives it to Adam to deliver. He then leaves to join his regiment in the south of England. Adam delivers the note, trying to soften the blow to Hetty as much as possible. Before she reads the letter, Hetty refuses to believe that Arthur wants to break off the relationship; she is convinced that Arthur will marry her. After she reads it, she is in despair. She wants to leave home and go into service as a maid, but the Poysers won’t let her. Finally she begins to feel that marrying Adam wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Meanwhile, Dinah has written a friendly letter to Seth from Snowfield, and Mrs. Poyser has verbally routed Squire Donnithorne, Arthur’s grandfather, who was bent on making a sharp deal with respect to the Poyser’s farm.
When Adam notices that Hetty’s friendly attitude toward him does not change, he concludes that there had really been nothing serious between Arthur and her. He proposes to her, she accepts, and the wedding is set for the following spring. Adam is deliriously happy and spends the next three months making preparations. Hetty, meanwhile, has fits of depression and contemplates suicide; she is pregnant by Arthur. She decides to run away and go to Arthur; telling the Poysers that she is going to visit Dinah in Snowfield for a week or two, she sets out.
After traveling for seven days, Hetty arrives sick, exhausted, and penniless, at Windsor. Here she is befriended by an innkeeper and his wife who inform her that Arthur’s regiment has left for Ireland. Hetty faints in despair, but the next day her courage revives, she gets some money from the innkeeper in exchange for the jewelry Arthur had given her, and she heads back north, intending to go to Dinah in Snowfield. After five days of traveling, though, her spirits give out, and she leaves her coach and wanders out into the open fields. She spends part of a night by a pond but can’t summon the courage to kill herself and so resumes her journey on foot towards Stonyshire.
When Hetty does not return in the expected time, Adam decides to go to Snowfield and bring her back. He discovers, of course, that she has never been there, and he tries to trace her but to no avail. Realizing that she has probably gone to Arthur, he resolves to go to Ireland. He stops at the parsonage to tell Mr. Irwine his plans and is shocked to learn that Hetty is in prison in Stoniton for the murder of her baby. He and Mr. Irwine go to Stoniton; Mr. Irwine returns the next day to break the bad news to the Poysers, while Adam rents a room and stays. Meanwhile, Arthur’s grandfather has died and Arthur has set out for home from Ireland.
As the trial begins, Adam sits in his room in despair. Mr. Irwine and Bartle Massey (who has come to stay with Adam) bring news of how the trial is progressing; Hetty’s guilt seems certain, though Adam refuses to believe it. Finally he goes to the courtroom himself. Two witnesses give evidence against Hetty, the jury returns the verdict of guilty, and the judge pronounces the death sentence. Meanwhile, Arthur has returned home, found a note from Mr. Irwine explaining the situation, and left for Stoniton.
On the evening after the trial, Dinah comes to the prison and gains admittance; she has been away and has just returned to the area. She gets Hetty to confess her guilt, which the girl had refused to do before, and induces her to pray. Dinah then goes and asks Adam to come and see Hetty before she dies. He comes the following morning, the day of the execution, and gives Hetty the forgiveness she asks for. Then Hetty is taken away to the place of execution. But at the last instant, Arthur comes riding up with a reprieve; Hetty’s sentence has been commuted to “transportation” (exile). The next day, Adam and Arthur meet by chance in the grove where they had fought. Arthur is repentant and plans on going off to the wars. He asks Adam’s forgiveness, and Adam, after a short struggle with his pride, agrees to shake hands.
Eighteen months later, Adam visits the Hall Farm to ask Dinah, who is visiting her relatives again, to come and comfort his ailing mother. Dinah goes back to the cottage with him and stays overnight to help Lisbeth. She blushes when Adam speaks to her. After she leaves, Lisbeth tells Adam that Dinah loves him; Adam is taken by surprise, but when he thinks about it he realizes that he loves her too. That afternoon he goes to the Hall Farm and proposes; Dinah wants to say yes, but her sense of duty stops her. She says she will return to her work among the poor and think about it. Adam reluctantly agrees and Dinah leaves. It is harvest time at the farm, and the harvest supper takes place with great gaiety.
After a month or so, Adam becomes anxious to know Dinah’s decision and goes to Snowfield. He meets her atop a hill and she accepts his proposal. After another month has passed, they are married amid great rejoicing.
Some years later, Dinah and Seth are at home with Dinah’s two children. Adam comes home; he has been to see Arthur, who has been away all this time and has returned a changed man. We learn that Hetty is dead, and then the novel ends on a note of domestic contentment.
19th Century Novel
George Meredith
George Meredith (1828 - 1909) Meredith is certainly a minor chracter is this section. If he does appear, you see only one or two questions, most likely on The Egoist.
The Egoist
George Meredith’s 1879 novel The Egoist is one of the major comic novels in the language. In telling the story of Clara Middleton’s struggle to extricate herself from her engagement to Sir Willoughby Patterne, the novel presents an ironic subversion of texts that had shaped the pattern of Victorian femininity. Clearly situated as an apparently realist novel in an English country house, this novel embodies in its language the monstrosity of an unequal relationship between man and woman as endorsed by the prevailing attitudes of the time. Clara has been pressured into an engagement with the eligible Sir Willoughby and the dynamic of the novel is carried by her dawning realisation of what marriage to him would mean and her increasingly urgent attempts to gain her freedom.
19th Century Novel
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Tackling Dickens is a bit like tackling Shakespeare simply because he has so many testable works. Focus on knowing the names and simple plot outlines and don’t stress about it too much.
David Copperfield
The story deals with the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity and deals with issues of child labor.
David Copperfield – the protagonist; later called “Trotwood Copperfield” by some (“David Copperfield” is also the name of the hero’s father, who died before he was born).
Edward Murdstone – Young David’s cruel stepfather who caned him for falling behind in his studies. David reacted by biting Mr Murdstone, who then sent him to Salem House - the private school owned by his friend Mr. Creakle. After David’s mother died, Mr Murdstone sent him to work in a blacking factory. He appeared at Betsy Trotwood’s house after David ran away. Mr Murdstone appears to show signs of repentence when confronted with Copperfield’s aunt but later in the book we hear he has married another young woman and applied his old principles of “firmness”.
James Steerforth – A close friend of David of a romantic and charming disposition; though well-liked by most, he proves himself to be lacking in character by seducing and later abandoning Emily. He eventually drowns at Yarmouth with Ham Peggotty, who was trying to rescue him.
The Pickwick Papers
The novel’s main character, Mr. Pickwick, is a kind old gentleman, the founder of the Pickwick Club. Mr. Pickwick travels with his friends, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr. Tracy Tupman, and their adventures are the chief theme of the novel.
Bleak House
The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. Dickens’s assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk. His harsh characterization of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, helping to set the stage for its eventual reform in the 1870s.
Esther Summerson — an orphan
Caddy Jellyby — a friend of Esther
Nicholas Nickleby
The lengthy novel centres around the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. His Uncle Ralph, who thinks Nicholas will never amount to anything, plays the role of an antagonist.
The tone of the work is burlesque, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices. Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas’ malevolent uncle Ralph, and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates a squalid boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily serves as a tutor.
Great Expectations Pip – an orphan, and the protagonist. Pip is to be trained as a blacksmith, a low but skilled and honest profession, but strives to rise above his class after meeting Estella Havisham.
Joe Gargery – Pip’s brother-in-law, and his first father figure. Joe represents the poor but honest life that Pip rejects.
Miss Havisham – Wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion, and who Pip is led to believe is his benefactor. Miss Havisham does not discourage this as it fits into her own spiteful plans.
Estella [Havisham] – Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter, who Pip pursues romantically throughout the novel. Estella represents the life of wealth and culture that Pip strives for. Since her ability to love any man (or anyone for that matter) has been ruined by Miss Havisham, she is unable to return Pip’s passion. She warns Pip of this repeatedly, but he refuses to believe her.
Hard Times (1854) The book is one of a number of state-of-the-nation novels published around the same time, another being North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which aimed to highlight the social and economic pressures some people were under. The novel is unusual, in that it is not set in London, as is Dickens' usual wont, but the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown.
Dickens’ novel follows the classical tripartite structure of novels, and the titles of each book are related to the proverbial aphorism, ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’. The interpretation of this quote being, what ever is effected upon or done in the present will have a direct effect on what happens later. Book I is entitled ‘Sowing’, Book II is entitled ‘Reaping’, and the third is ‘Garnering’. These titles are a deliberate motif used, and have to be bared in mind when reading the book and analysing its narrative and content.
In Hard Times it can be affirmed that there is no main protagonist. A criticism of Dickens novels is that the intricate plots and eventual denouement, mean that several characters are involved only to represent ideas of Dickens, usually at the expense of their development as human beings. Ergo, representing straw men and women.
Mr. Thomas Gradgrind
Tom Gradgrind is a utilitarian who is the founder of the educational system in Coketown. ‘Eminently practical’ is Gradgrind’s recurring description throughout the novel, and practicality is something he zealously aspires to. He represents the stringency of ‘Fact’, statistics and other materialistic pursuits. Only after his daughter’s breakdown does he come to a realisation that things such as poetry, fiction and other pursuits are not ‘destructive nonsense’.
Josiah Bounderby
Josiah Bounderby is a business associate of Mr. Gradgrind. He is a bombastic, yet thunderous merchant given to peroration. He employs many of the other central characters of the novel, and his rise to prosperity is shown to be an example of social mobility. He marries Mr. Gradgrind’s daughter Louisa, some 25 years his junior, in what turns out to be a soulless matrimony. Bounderby is the main target of Dickens’ attack on the supposed moral superiority of the wealthy, and is revealed to be an utter hypocrite in his sensational comeuppance at the end of the novel.
Louisa Gradgrind/Bounderby
Louisa is the unemotional, distant and eldest child of the Gradgrind family. She has been taught to abnegate her emotions, and finds it hard to express herself clearly, saying as a child she has ‘unmanageable thoughts’. She is married to Josiah Bounderby, in a very logical and businesslike manner, representing the emphasis on factuality and business ethos of her education. Her marriage is a disaster and is tempted into adultery by James Harthouse, yet, she manages to resist this temptation.
Stephen Blackpool
‘Old Stephen’ as he is referred to by his fellow ‘Hands’ is an improvident, indigent worker at one of Bounderby’s mills. His life is immensely strenuous, and he is married to a constantly inebriated wife who comes and goes throughout the novel. He forms a close bond with Rachael, a female worker. After a dispute with Bounderby, he is dismissed from his work at the Coketown mills and is forced to find work elsewhere. Whilst absent from Coketown he is accused of complicity in a crime he did not commit, and tragically, on his way back to vindicate himself he falls into a pit, and seriously injures himself. He is rescued, but dies.
Oliver Twist Characters: * Oliver Twist * Fagin * Bill Sikes * The Artful Dodger * Noah Claypole * Mr. Brownlow
Oliver is a boy born in a workhouse, who has no idea of his parents’ identity. His mother Agnes died in childbirth. By pure chance he is chosen as a scapegoat by the other starving boys, and is made to go and ask for an extra helping at a mealtime (“Please, sir, I want some more.”). As a result of this breach of etiquette, he is “sold” by the workhouse as an undertaker’s apprentice. The cruelty he suffers at the hands of an older apprentice named Noah Claypole causes him to run away, and he finds his way to London, where he is taken under the wing of the Artful Dodger, a boy criminal.
The Dodger introduces Oliver into his circle of friends, who include Fagin the Jew, a criminal mastermind, and his brutal ally, Bill Sikes. Oliver is taught crimes such as picking pockets, but never actually participates in them. He is shown kindness by Bill’s 17-year-old mistress, Nancy.
After a robbery that goes wrong, in which Oliver played the part of an unwitting lookout, he is taken into the home of a wealthy man, Mr Brownlow. Unknown to them, efforts are being made by Oliver’s half-brother, Monks, to locate him and prevent him from obtaining his inheritance, but Mr Brownlow soon begins to suspect that Oliver is the son of his niece. Sikes and Nancy snatch Oliver back, and Sikes takes him on a burglary, planning to get him a criminal record as a favour to Monks. But Oliver is left behind when the burglary goes wrong, and is adopted into the home of Rose Maylie. Ultimately he is restored to Mr Brownlow.
Meanwhile, Monks and Fagin are plotting to try to go after Oliver again and either kidnap him or kill him. Nancy is fearful of such a scenario and goes to Rose Maylie and Mr Brownlow to divulge the plot of the evil pair. She manages to keep her secret meetings hidden until Noah Claypole (he has fallen out with the same undertaker who once employed Oliver and moved to London to seek his own fortune) agrees to spy on Nancy and then gives information to Fagin and Sikes. In a fit of rage, Sikes murders Nancy and is himself killed while being pursued by an angry mob. Monks is forced to explain his secrets and give his inheritance to Oliver, and moves to America soon afterwards, where he ultimately dies in prison. Fagin is arrested and hanged for his crimes. Rose Maylie marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, and Oliver lives happily with his saviour, Mr Brownlow.
19th Century Novel
Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Note that in British literary history, there are two men by name of Samuel Butler. Don't confuse this Victorian Butler with the author of Hudibras.
The Way of All Flesh (1903)
The Way of All Flesh is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler which attacks Victorian era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it traces four generations of the Pontifex family. It represents the diminishment of religious outlook from a Calvinistic approach, which is presented as harsh. Butler dared not publish it during his lifetime, but when it was published, it was accepted as part of the general revulsion against Victorianism.La
Erewhon (1872)
Erewhon, an anagram for “Nowhere,” is a satire of Victorian society.
The first few chapters of the novel, dealing with the discovery of Erewhon, are in fact based on Butler’s own experiences in New Zealand, where as a young man he was a sheep farmer for about four years (1860-1864) and where he explored parts of the interior of the South Island. (One of the country’s largest sheep farms, located in this region, is named Erewhon in his honour)
The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is clearly intended to be ambiguous. At first glance Erewhon appears to be a utopia, yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon it is also clearly not a dystopia (or anti-utopia), an undesirable society such as that depicted by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. As a satirical utopia Erewhon has sometimes been compared to Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift, the image of Utopia in this case also bearing strong parallels with the self-view of the British Empire at the time.
Erewhon satirizes various aspects of Victorian society, including criminal punishment, religion and anthropocentrism. In Erewhon law, offenders are treated as if they were ill, whilst ill people are looked upon as criminals, for example. Another feature of Erewhon is that there are no machines, because they are considered to be dangerous: they might develop consciousness and supersede humankind. This last aspect of Erewhon reveals the influence of Charles Darwin’s evolution theory; Butler had read The Origin of Species soon after it was published in 1859.
19th Century Novel
Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Bronte (1816 – 1855) Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters whose novels have become enduring classics of English literature.
Jane Eyre
The narrator and main character, Jane Eyre, is a poor orphan with a joyless life as a child in the opening chapters. Her wealthy aunt, the widowed Mrs. Reed, have agreed to take care of Jane after her parents’ deaths. However, she and her children are unkind to Jane, never failing to emphasize how she is below them. Jane’s plain, intelligent, and passionate nature, combined her occasional “visions” or vivid dreams, certainly does not help to secure her relatives’ affections.
When tensions escalate, Jane is sent to Lowood, a boarding school run by the inhumane Mr. Brocklehurst. She is soon is branded a liar, which hurts her even more than malnutrition and cold, but Miss Temple, the headmistress Jane admires, later clears her of these charges. She also finds a friend in Helen Burns, who is very learned and intelligent, has a patient and philosophical mind, and believes firmly in God. While Jane responds to the injustices of the world with a barely contained burning temper, Helen accepts earthly sufferings, including her own premature death from consumption (TB), with calmness and a martyr-like attitude.
After a serious typhoid fever epidemic occuring simultaneously with Helen’s death, the conditions in Lowood improve as Jane slowly finds her place in the institution, eventually becoming a teacher. When Miss Temple marries and moves away, Jane decides to change careers. She is desperate to see the world beyond Lowood and puts out an advertisement in the local paper, soon securing a position as governess in Thornfield Hall.
At first, life is very quiet with Jane teaching a young French girl, Adélè, and spending time with the old housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. But everything changes when the owner of the manor—brooding, Byronic, fiery Edward Rochester—arrives. Though on rough footing at first, he and Jane slowly become acquainted with and respect each other. Mr. Rochester creates an elaborate set-up by seemingly courting a proud local beauty named Miss Blanche Ingram until Jane cannot bear it any longer. Mr. Rochester then admits that his courtship of Miss Ingram was a ruse to arouse Jane’s jealousy and that it is she whom he truly loves. His feelings are returned, and they become engaged despite their differences in social status, age, and experience. Jane is young and innocent at nineteen years old, while Rochester is nearly forty—worldly, and thoroughly disillusioned with life and religion. Jane is determined to stay modest, plain, and virtuous, and Rochester is almost equally determined to offer her expensive presents and finery. The former has the moral high ground, though, and the weeks before the wedding are spent mostly as she wishes.
The wedding ceremony is interrupted by a lawyer, who declares that Mr. Rochester is already married. His mad wife Bertha Mason, a Creole from Jamaica whom he had to marry to secure an estate, resides in the attic of Thornfield Hall, and her presence explains all sorts of mysterious events that have taken place during Jane’s stay in Thornfield. Mr. Rochester offers to take her abroad to live with him, but Jane is not willing to sacrifice her morals or self-respect for earthly pleasures, let alone accept the status of mistress, even though Rochester insists Jane will break his heart if she refuses him. Torn between her love for Rochester and her own integrity and religion, Jane flees Thornfield in the middle of the night, with very little money and nowhere to go.
She wanders for a few days and finally finds safe haven, under an alias, with a vicar, St. John Rivers, and his two sisters. They bond, and in due course Jane is given a position as village schoolteacher. Later, St. John learns Jane’s true identity, and, in an incredulous coincidence, it transpires that he and his sisters are actually her cousins. Additionally, Jane conveniently inherits a large sum of money from an uncle who lived abroad. The cousins are left without inheritance because of an old family feud, but she promptly splits the money so that all four of them are now financially secure. This gives St. John the means to pursue his true calling, to go to India as a missionary, but not without proposing marriage to Jane in order for her to accompany him. Though this is her opportunity to choose a husband of high morals, she knows St. John does not truly love her. Counter to her protest, he insists they are to be married if they are to go to India. Jane nearly succumbs to his proposal, but at the last minute, in another supernatural fashion, she hears Rochester’s voice calling her in the wind, and feels the need to respond to it.
Jane immediately travels to Thornfield Hall, only to find it abandoned and ruined by a devastating fire. She learns that Mr. Rochester lost a hand, an eye, and the sight of the other eye as a result of trying to unsuccessfully save Bertha from the flames, of which she was the cause of. Upon acquiring the knowledge of his location, at a cabin called Ferndean, she sets off for it. She and Mr. Rochester reconcile and marry, for he has adopted love and religion. She writes in the perspective of ten years after their marriage, during which she gave birth to a son and Mr. Rochester gained part of his sight back. Jane’s long quest to find love and a sense of belonging is finally fulfilled. The book ends with a look at the noble missionary death of St. John Rivers far away in India, most likely representing the righteousness of the path Jane did not take.
19th Century Novel
Emily Bronte
Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848) Emily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights,
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë’s only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell.
Brontë’s novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. The plot is given here in detail, as the book’s narration is at times non-linear.
The story is narrated by a character named Lockwood, who is renting a house from Heathcliff. The house, Thrushcross Grange, is close to Wuthering Heights.
Much of the action itself is narrated to Lockwood during his illness by the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean. Lockwood’s arrival is after much of the story has already happened - but his story is interwoven with Dean’s.
Dean’s story provides insight into how the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine would have far-reaching repercussions for their families. Heathcliff’s passion for Catherine is so dark and sinister that he becomes hellbent on destroying the happiness of her sister-in-law, her daughter and even his own son. This mission of destruction, though fervent during Catherine’s lifetime, becomes still more impassioned after her death.
The plot is complicated, involving many turns of fortune. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw, the original proprietor of Wuthering Heights, bringing back the dark-skinned foundling Heathcliff from Liverpool. Initially, Earnshaw’s children - Hindley and Catherine - detest the boy, but over time Heathcliff wins Catherine’s heart, to the resentment of Hindley, who sees Heathcliff as an interloper of his father’s affections. Later, Hindley is packed off to college by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable.
Upon Earnshaw’s death three years later, Hindley comes home from college and surprises everyone by also bringing home a wife, a woman named Frances. He takes over Wuthering Heights, and brutalizes Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Despite this, Heathcliff and Catherine remain the fastest of friends. By means of an accident (a dog bite), Catherine is forced to stay at the Linton family estate Thrushcross Grange for some weeks, wherein she matures and grows attached to the refined young Edgar Linton. When she returns to Wuthering Heights, she goes to some trouble to maintain her friendship with both Edgar and Heathcliff, in spite of them having an instantaneous dislike for each other.
A year later, Frances dies soon after the birth of Hindley’s child Hareton. The loss leaves Hindley despondent, and he turns to alcohol. Some two years after that, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar, causing Heathcliff to leave.
After Catherine has been married to Edgar for three years, Heathcliff returns to see her, having amassed significant wealth. He has duped Hindley into owing him Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff learns of, and takes advantage of, a crush Edgar’s sister Isabella has on him and he seduces and elopes with her, much to Edgar’s despair. This places Heathcliff in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange, as well. After his marriage, Heathcliff’s true feelings toward Isabella emerge and his cruelty towards her (and Hareton, as the son of his old rival, Hindley) knows no bounds.
Back at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine dies in childbirth, giving birth to her and Edgar’s child, a girl— also named Catherine. Isabella flees Heathcliff’s cruelty a year after, and later gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies, and Heathcliff takes final control of Wuthering Heights. He also takes complete control of Hindley’s son, Hareton, determined to raise the boy with as much neglect as he suffered at Hindley’s hands years earlier. (Hareton, however, will remain loyal to Heathcliff to the end, looking at him as a surrogate father.) In perhaps the most complicated turn of the plot, fifteen or sixteen years later Heathcliff recalls his real son Linton back to Wuthering Heights. The boy is sickly and spoiled. Through a series of events, Heathcliff forces young Catherine and Linton to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton, father of young Catherine, dies, followed shortly by Heathcliff’s son, Linton. This leaves young Catherine a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff gains complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
It is at this point in the story, the winter of 1801, that Lockwood arrives. Dean tells him the past thirty or so years of the story during his illness. Lockwood is horrified and departs for London.
Young Catherine, at first repulsed by Hareton’s roughness, eventually grows tender towards him— just as her mother grew tender towards Heathcliff. In her lonely state of existence at Wuthering Heights, Hareton becomes her only source of happiness.
Only through the union of young Hareton and young Catherine can the pattern of hatred and darkness be broken and of course this can only come with Heathcliff’s eventual demise at the end of the novel. The difference between young Hareton and young Catherine and Catherine and Heathcliff is that they are matched in social status and experience and therefore have more in common than just their love for one another. Furthermore, it is strongly implied that Heathcliff himself, on seeing their love for one another, no longer cares to pursue his life-long vendetta.
Tormented for years by what he perceives as the elder Catherine’s ghost, Heathcliff finally dies, and Catherine and Hareton marry. Heathcliff is buried with Catherine (the elder), and the story concludes with Lockwood visiting the grave, unsure of exactly what to feel.
19th Century Novel
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Let’s face the facts: there is just far too much Jane Austen that could appear on the exam, and you can be certain that at least one of her books will show up. Again, it’s a name game; concentrate on learning the names of the primary characters, and take a brief look at the plots of the novels, but don’t attempt to memorize every little detail, and certainly don’t waste your time reading the novels. I have listed here only the names of the main characters, and in some instances, the opening lines. Check out Spark Notes for more in-depth treatment of Jane Austen. Also, the GRE study books that are out there give concise summarsies of all Austen’s work.
Sense and Sensibility
Names to know:
Marianne Dashwood
Elinor Dashwood
Lucy Steel
John Willoughby
Colonel Brandon
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is essentially the story of a mother attempting to marry off her daughters.
Names to know:
Elizabeth Bennet
Jane Bennet
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Chrles Bingley
George Wickham
It begins:
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day,have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?’’
Mansfield Park
Names to know:
the Bertrams of Mansfield Park
Fanny Price
Mrs. Norris
Emma
Names to know:
Emma Woodhouse
Mr. Knightley
Miss Bates
Frank Churchill
Harriet Smith
Jane Fairfax
It begins:
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
Persuasion
Names to know:
Sir Walter
Elizabeth Elliot
Anne Elliot
Frederick Wentworth
Northanger Abbey
see the page on Gothic novel
