Modern Flashcards
About DH Lawrence?
DH Lawrence (1885-1930)
David Herbert Lawrence was born in Eastwood
His father Arthur John Lawrence was a miner at Brinsley Colliery and his mother was Lydia Beadsall, who used to be a teacher, but had to work in lace factory. He spent his earlier life in a coal-mining town of Eastwood in Nottinghamshire.
He was schooled in Beauvale Board School and then worked as a junior clerk at Haywood’s Surgical appliances factory. He suffered from Pneumonia due to which he couldn’t continue his work. He became a pupil-teacher in British School, Eastwood. Later he became a full-time writer.
He died of Tuberculosis.
Summary of Sons and Lovers?
Sons and Lovers (1913)
It was published in 1913. It received charges of obscenity due to its content.
The novel is seen as an example of Oedipus Complex, a theory propagated by Sigmund Freud. The main character is named Gertrude which is an allusion to Hamlet’s Mother.
Plot
Gertrude Coppard, who belonged to a rich family started romancing a miner named Walter Morel after a dance party and gets married to him. She realizes pretty soon that it wont be easy to live with a miner, who has very little income as compared to her earlier life. The husband and wife started fighting on trivial issues especially due to the drinking habits of Walter. She shifted her affection towards her sons.
The oldest son, William becomes attracted towards her and started defending her from his father. He has to leave home to find a job in London. He is engaged but he cannot love his partner as she doesn’t behave naturally towards him. He dies and Mrs Morel is heartbroken.
Her love is shifted towards Paul, who catches Pneumonia. He is attracted towards her mother as well, but is also a little alienated from her. Although he loves her also wants to experience a relationship with other women. He meets Miriam while attending church. She is a daughter of a farmer. They meet and have good conversions over literary works. He is not able to give his all into the relationship because he is scared of his mother’s disapproval. He also meets Clara, who has separated with her husband.
He is unsatisfied with the physical relationship with MIRIAM which makes him leave the relationship. He becomes more connected with Clara, but even with her he is not comfortable. The root of all these failed relationship is her attraction towards his mother. He leaves Clara as well and comes back to his mother. She dies later and he is not able to have any other relationship.
Summary of The Rainbow?
The Rainbow 1915
It was first published by Methuen & Co. The Rainbow had to go through an obscenity trial at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court on 13 November 1915, and 1,011 copies were seized and burnt. It was banned for 11 years in England.
Plot
It is about Brangwen family who live in Midlands of England and work as farmers for several generations. It covers about 65 years from 1840s to 1905. It tells us about the relationships in the family within the industrial society of Britain.
Tom Brangwen’s life is limited within the two counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. His grand-daughter becomes a teacher after studying in a university. She is more natural in the urbanised industrial world than her grandfather. Tom also falls in love with Lydia a Polish refugee who is a widow,
The Rainbow had a sequel called Women in Love. It was published in first published in 1920.
It is about URSULA, the grand-daughter of Tom BRANGWEN who is still having many spiritual and emotional issues. She has a relationship with RUPERT BIRKIN (Who is modelled after Lawrence). It also has a separative narrative about her sister named GUDRUN and her relationship with Birkin’s friend Gerald Crich. This relationship which destructive, unlike the relationship between Ursula and Rubert. Gudrun starts having an emotional connection with Loerke and Gerald tries to strangle him. He is about to kill them but realizes that it is wrong and leaves them. He falls down from a mountain and freezes to death. Birkin is heartbroken with Gerald’s death explaining to Ursula that he needed Gerald in his life as well like her.
Summary of Lady Chatterley’s Lover?
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
It was published first in Italy in 1928 and then in France and Australia in 1929. It took 30 more years to have it published in London in 1960.
The novel had to go through a long obscenity trial in which the publishers Penguin won the case. They sold 3 million copies. It also had several trials in other countries.
Plot
CONSTANCE REID who is Lady Chatterley has a husband named Sir CLIFFORD CHATTERLEY who is paralysed below the waist due to an injury which he got in the great war. She also is not involved emotionally with him as he is quite cold towards her. They are quite apart from each other.
To fill that void in her relationship she starts having affairs with other men. She first has an affair with OLIVER MELLORS, the gamekeeper.
Lawrence also show the intellectual arrogance of the which through the relationship. Constance realizes that she has to fulfil her physical desires as well apart from her mental satisfaction.
About Henry James?
Henry James (1843-1916) He was American-British writer. His father was Henry James Sr. and his brother was William James (Philosopher) and Alice James (Diarist)
Summary of Portrait of a Lady?
Portrait of a Lady (1881)
Plot
ISABEL ARCHER a young women with high spirits becomes the master of a huge amount of money. She is from Albany New York and her aunt LYDIA TOUCHETT asks her to visit her and her husband DANIEL near London. They both are reach and have a large estate. She meets her cousin RALPH Touchett and his neighbour Lord Warburton.
She rejects the proposal given by WARBURTON and Caspar Goodwood, whose father is the owner of Boston Mill. She doesn’t get connected to them although she is attracted towards CASPAR. She doesn’t want to sacrifice her freedom for the sake of marriage. She wants to be an independent woman who is not dependent to any man.
About James Joyce?
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 – 1941)
He was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland.
His father was John Stainslaus Joyce and his mother was Mary Jane “May”. He had nine other sibling and he was the eldest. They owned a salt and lime works in County Cork. His father was angry with the treatment that the politician Charles Parnell got from the catholic church and James wrote a poem when Parnell died.
He went to a Jesuit Boarding School called Clongowes Wood School but had to leave and go to Christian Brothers O’Connell School. He didn’t finish studying medicine and returned back from Paris. After having an illustrious career in writing he married Nora and had a child called George. He died because of Duodenal Ulcer in Zurich
What is Stream of Consciousness?
It is a literary Style which narrates whatever is happening inside the mind of a character with a continuous flow. Here we don’t find any interruption like realistic novels where the narrator used to describe the surrounding and the characters in an objective way. Some writers who used these techniques are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust.
What is Kunstlerroman?
Künstlerroman (“artist novel”) narrates a Buidungsrroman, but about an artist and how S/he developed into the self they have become.
Summary of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man?
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
It is a Künstlerroman published in 1916. It was published by B.W. Huesbche.
Plot
Stephan Dedalus is a boy from Ireland, he is studying in a Jesuit school called CLONGOWOS Wood School. He is shy and is bullied by his other children. He falls sick and imagines how everyone will feel if he dies.
On October 6, 1891 a great patriotic leader Parnell dies and comes to know about his importance as it has creates a ruckus in his family. His father Simon defends Parnell, but his aunt DANTE Diordan is against him as he was against the CATHOLIC church and having an extramarital affair with KITTY O’Shea. Simon says that he was betrayed by the church for he fought all his life. This whole quarrel destroyed their Christmas dinner, Stephan becomes aware of the religious and political divide in the country.
He collides with a bicycle and breaks his glasses. Now he cannot work till he gets his glasses from his father. Father DOLAN BEATS him up after accuses him of breaking his glasses with a “pandybat”.
He finds a sympathiser in “NASTY ROCHE” his classmate. He goes to complain the rector about his beating, who sympathises with him and tells him that he will ask Dolan to not give him work. He is seen as a hero as he had the courage to speak to the rector. He finds out that the rector and Dolan were laughing about the incident.
When he grows older he is attacked by bullies for being HERETIC and liking Byron after he is accused of inserting a line in an essay by his teacher Mr Tate. He replies them by saying that his morality has nothing to do with his greatness as a poet. He is beaten up by them with a cane, but he stands up.
He goes on a trip with his father. He finds it embarrassing the way his father meets people with sentimentality. This leads to them losing their money and they had to move into a smaller house. He wins some prizes to improve the income and establishes a family loan service. They however become poorer. He has an unsatisfactory experience with sex when he uses his prize money and goes to the red-light area.
He goes back to the school and learns about the torment in the hell which frightens him. He has nightmares, he goes to the Dublin church and confesses. The old priest directs him on the road of penitence. He now wants to lead a life without such desires. He tries to live like monks and not to think about girls. He now starts reading philosophers and becomes the new regimen in his college. Here he is persuaded to join priesthood and starts seeing himself as a PRIEST with all the power of the church.
After a while, he starts DOUBTING RELIGION when he reads more. He has David, Lynch and Cranly as his friends. He likes a girl but leaves her as she flirted with a priest. His friends are involved either in church or in the national movement. He loves English poetry unlike them who start learning Gaelic. He rejects the proposal for world peace as it is headed by the czar of Russia. He wants to become a writer. He meets EMMA again and tells her that he wants to become a monk, but she feels he will ABANDON RELIGION. He decides to leave religion completely and remove all attachments and relationships that he has. His only aim now is to become an INDEPENDENT WRITER without any political alignments. He believes in ‘art for art’s sake’ without any link to morality. He is ready to leave Ireland in search of his artistic life.
Summary of Ulysses?
Ulysses It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The LITTLE REVIEW from March 1918 to December 1920 and then published in its entirety in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce’s 40th birthday.
Ulysses is divided into 18 episodes like Homer’s Odyssey.
According to NABOKOV Ulysses in a ‘divine work of art’ and the greatest masterpiece of 20th century.
Plot
The novel set in Dublin on June 1904. LEOPOLD BLOOM travels through the city for his advertising job. STEPHAN DEDALUS who features in A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. Bloom’s wife MOLLY is a singer having an affair with BLAZE BOYLAN. They have a daughter MILLY, who is 15. Rudy his son died when he was eleven days old.
Stephan is in Paris as an academic and has to return back as his mother is ill. He never prays for his mother as he is not into religion anymore. He thinks that he cannot write his epic in Ireland.
The first three chapters are about his daily routine as a school teacher. They are called “TELEMACHUS,” “NESTOR” and “PROTEUS.
In Part II, the opening chapters “CALYPSO ” and “LOTUS-EATERS”) begin with a new day of Leopald Bloom attending the funeral of his friend Paddy Dignam. He prepares the breakfast when his wife is still not awake. He is a Jew living in a Roman Catholic society. He roams around Dublin with Stephan. The employees in Newspaper office treat Bloom in a rude way. He is sad due to his wife’s love affair and also due to the poor living in the city. He feels happy in the Musical nights and he accepts himself being alone.
A Patriot argues with him and he REVEALS his identity as a Jew and Irish citizen. He is ATTACKED VERBALLY by the citizen. He replied saying that even Christ was a Jew. The drunk citizen throws Biscuit tin toward, he is victorious in the incident and transforms into a father figure for Stephan.
In the next chapter “NAUSICAA” he looks old and tired. He gets involved in a sexual act with Gerty MacDowell. He goes to the red light district to accompany Stephan after they go to a hospital where a woman called Mrs Mina Purefoy is in labour.
Bloom goes into a hallucination and feels religious guilt and shameful to lose his wife to Blazes Boylan. When he wakes up he sees Stephen has CHANGED into a CREATURE. He is forced by his mother’s ghost to join Catholicism. Bloom helps Stephen when he is punched by a British officer to go to the Cabman’s Shelter. Stephen will leave Bloom and make his by himself.
In the final Chapter named ‘PENELOPE ’ MOLLY tells us about the REASON behind her affair with someone else. According to her Herold Bloom was not EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED with her. She loves her husband but for her the marriage doesn’t work out.
Summary of Finneran’s Wake?
Finnegan’s Wake(1939)
In this novel, Joyce uses idiosyncratic language which sounds like sleep and dreams. It is considered to be a great work related to the stream of consciousness method.
Plot
It is about The EARWICKER FAMILY, the father HCE, the mother ALP, and their three children SHEM the Penman, SHAUN the Postman, and ISSY. FINNEGAN who falls from a ladder and dies. He was CONSTRUCTING a wall when he fell and died. He VANISHES before he is EATEN is the spread where people mourning him can eat him. It was ANNE his wife who did that. He tries to wake up when they pour whiskey over him, but the mourners tell him to DIE again, as it is better for him
In the second chapter we have HAROLD of HUMPHREY or Chimpden with a nickename EARWICKER. He is famous in the Dublin society and is called HCE (HERE COMES EVERYBODY). Due to a rumour of him being involve in a sexual trespass with two girls. There is even a song written Hosty called The Ballade of Persse O’Reailly. HCE had to hide from the people. He is tried and freed but goes again into hiding.
BIDDY recovers the letter written by APL to her son about HCE her husband. Shem has to solve 12 riddles in the letter. The final chapter has the letter writer Shem and the original author her mother ALP. The chapter is about Shaun saying bad things about his brother Shem. In the end, mother defends Shem and HCE.
HCE writes about his GUILT in the newspaper and ALP takes REVENGE with his enemies.
Part 2 is about the three children SHEM, SHAUN and ISSY where they are studying upstairs.
Part 3 is about Shaun
Part 4 is about Earwick waking up and ALP’s final monologue.
About Joseph Conrad?
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) He was Polish-British writer. He was born in Berdychiv in Ukrain which was part of Poland Kingdom in Russia. His father was Apollo Korzeniowski who was a writer, translator and involved in revolutions. His mother was Ewa Bobrowska. He was named Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski after his maternal grandfather.
Summary of Lord Jim?
Lord Jim (serialized in Blackwood Magazine from October 1899 and November 1900) Plot: Many passengers are left by their crew in a ship by its crew including Jim. He goes through psychological distress due to that act which haunts him with due to his actions. He goes to join a Steamer service called Patna which is going to the Red sea for pilgrimage. CORNELIUS tries to get rid of Jim by going through side channel which kills DAIN WARIS and others. Jim’s man Tamb Itam kills Conrnelius. Jim is sad with his death. Jim goes to Doramin where he takes responsibility of his son’s death. Doramin gives his pistol to Stein to kill Jim.
Summary of Heart of Darkness?
Heart of Darkness (1899)
It is a novella based in the heart of Africa in Congo. It was first ublished in a three-part serial in February, March and April of 1899 in Blackwood’s Magazine. (1000 special edition in February) Later it was published along with other works in a book called Youth: a Narrative, and Two Other Stories in 1902 by William Blackwood.
Plot
Marlow is sitting like a Buddha on a deck of the a yawl called Nellie anchored in the Thames Estuary. He is an experienced voyager who is talking to his friends who have become rich and important. He begins by telling them about his experience in Congo river few years ago when he was searching for an Ivory trader named Mr Kurtz.
Since his childhood he was attracted towards the sea and later he saw the map of Africa and decided to take a job by catching a steamer to Congo river. He is recruited by his aunt who knows people in a trading company who are in need of sailors to go and explore Africa to find raw materials. He had someone called Fresleven who went before him. He was murdered by the natives in an argument over chickens. He is medically examined and his skull is measured as well. He abords a French steamer. He sees that a French man is firing shells in Africa.
In Africa he sees black people being enslaved as labourers. He is impresses by a worker who dresses European in such a place. He learns about Mr Kurtz being in the inner station of Congo sending back a large amount of Ivory. He reaches to the central station after two weeks in the deep in the forest. He is not welcomed properly by the manager there. His boat has sunk and it will take him three more months to go into the sea. He meets others in the station who are jealous of Mr Kurtz. He hears from them that Mr Kurtz is seriously ill. He has to go to meet him and bring him back along with the ivory.
He starts the journey with the boat along with other travellers comprising of managers, pilgrims and cannibals.
He reaches an abandoned hut where he finds a note telling him to be quick and be cautious while travelling up. He finds an English maritime manual with annotations.
The natives fire on the ship when he reaches Kurtz’s station, his cannibal steersman is killed. He pulls the whistle on the steamer which scares them because of their superstition. He reaches the inner station. He meets a Russian sailor at Stanley Falls who had left he manual with Russian script. He praises Mr Kurtz a lot and tells him that he is extremely ill and won’t survive. He finds out that there are native heads lying around like polished wooden balls.
He learns about Mr Kurtz coming to Congo believing that Europeans will bring culture to the place along with commercial gain for his country. Mr Kurtz has a fiancée in Brussels referred by him as “my intended”. He finds Kurtz’s mistress, a native girl. He is letting native people perform rites in his honour. He killed any black person who came in his way to get the ivory.
Marlow has mixed feelings about him because although he has achieved a lot it has come with a price of being a destroyer of the resources and many lives. He started well but became a monster in his pursuit.
Mr Kurtz is now in his steamer almost dead. A native comes to him and informs that Mistah Kurtz is dead. His last words were ‘The horror! The horror!”, in the end, he was aware of his sins.
Marlow goes and meet Kurtz’s fiancée. He lies to her about Kurtz’s horrible life and death and tells her that he was a great man. His last words were his fiancée’s name. He doesn’t allow anyone to take papers which Kurtz had with him with details of ivory.
