Non-British Flashcards
Summary of Wide Sargasso Sea?
Jean Rhys
British Author born in Dominica in the Caribbean.
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
It was written in response to Jane Eyre (1847) dealing with the marriage of Mr Rochester with her Caribbean wife Antoinette Cosway. She is mentioned as Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre.
Plot
The novel tells the story of Antoinette Cosway. It begins with her being a young girl in Coulibri in a Sugar plantation in Jamaica. She was wealthy once but poor now. The slaves burn down her house which kills her brother Pierre. Annette, her mother, becomes mentally ill and dies as Mason sends her to live with people who torture her. She met an English gentleman Rochester who renamed her as Bertha and told everyone that she is mad. He tells her about his affairs which makes her even crazier. She was taken to England where she was kept in an attic. She doesn’t belong to the world where she lives neither in Jamaica nor in England. She spends time with Grace Poole who is the servant in Thornfield Hall. She is given false promises by her husband and dreams of getting freedom. Finally she has thoughts of being engulfed in flames and being free from life. She leaves the room and burns down the place.
Summary of Hundred Years of Solitude?
Gabrial Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Plot
It is a story of an isolated fictional town of Macondo in Columbia. It is about Buendia family with José Arcadio Buendía as its head. The town only had gypsies for many years. José Arcadio Buendia lives an isolated life having interest in mysterious issues. His son José Arcadio is quite strong. There is civil war in the town due to which ends in a lot of deaths. Aureliano is the Liberal rebels leader.
Arcadio becomes leader and gets shot after a dictatorial rule resulting in a mayor being having a peaceful rule. He is also killed after a civil uprising.
The family’s strength lies in the matriarch, Ursula Iguaran who keeps the family together. Capitalism enters the town and ruins it. Americans come and exploit the banana workers and they go on strike. They are massacred by the army and dumped in the sea. After that there is a flood in the town. The town in the end is again the same as the beginning. All the family members cut themselves from the world. The last of the Buendia deciphers ancient prophecies to find out that the village is living a predestined cycle of life.
Summary of The English Patient?
Michael Ondaatje.(1943-)
He was born in Colombo. He is a Sri Lankan Born Canadian novelist and poet. He studies in University of Lennoxville in Quebec and University of Toronto. He taught English Literature in York University and Glendon College.
The English Patient (1992)
He has won the Man Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient.
It was adapted into a film starring Ralph Fiennes.
Plot
It is about a critically burnt English patient who is taken care of by Hana in an Italian Monastery, a young Canadian nurse. The English Patient has an annotated copy of Herodotus’s The Histories with him. He gets reminded of the desert explorations he was part of by reading of the book. However, he is unable to recall his own name. Due to the he speaks English, people around him think him to be an Englishman.
Carvaggio, who is an Italian Canadian, is a friend of Hana. He was tortured and his thumbs were cut off due to him being a spy. He recovered in the hospital after the war. He wants to avenge his war wounds after hearing about an English Patient.
Kip becomes a friend of the patient. Hana risks her life to stop a bomb from exploding while Kip is defusing it. They start a relationship after that.
The English patient start to reveal about him due to the effect of morphine. He had a girlfriend called Katherine Clifton. She used to read Herodotus’s tale to Almasy and they started an affair but got afraid of her husband Geoffrey.
Geoffrey offers Almasy to return with him to Cairo. Katherine is also in the plane and he is not aware about that. There is a crash and Geoffrey is killed while Katherine become internally injured.
He is detained by the British due to his name in El Taj. He guides German spies to desert to Cairo to find the dead body of Katherine. While returning back the plane leaks oil on him and he uses the parachutes to go down while being burnt.
Kip nearly shoots him after hearing about US bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kip returns to India and married someone else.
Summary of The Handmaid’s Tale?
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale
It is a dystopian novel published in 1985.
It is based in New England of the future.
Plot
It is about Offred (of Fred) whose name suggests that she isn’t called by her birth name but the name of her master. She is a handmaid in Republic of Gilead which is a theocratic and autocratic government. Handmaid’s only job is to give birth to children for rich couples. She is serving the Commander and her wife named Serena Joy who is known for her traditional ideas.
She has to live without any freedom as she cannot go out of the boundaries and watched all the time by the police. She keeps talking about her lover Luke, who was a divorced man having affair with her and a child. She has Moira as her friend.
The government came to the power by assassinating the President and the members of the Congress. They removed all the rights including financial independence from women. Offred tried to escape with her daughter to Canada but she got caught and after that she is not able to see her husband and daughter.
She was sent to the Red Centred where she was brainwashed to believe that women should serve men. When she is not able to reproduce, she is suggested by Serena to have a child using Nick. She comes to know the Moira almost crossed Canada but was captured. Commander makes love with her in the hotel room.
Later, she starts having a physical relationship with Nick. She is not able to gather any information from Commander for Mayday to escape the place. Ofglan hangs herself after killing a so called rapist who was a member of Mayday. Serena knows about Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s and she waits for the black van to arrive for her punishment. Nick tells her they are members of Mayday to save her. She goes with them without knowing her fate.
The novel ends with an epilogue where Professor Piexoto is giving a lecture after the fall of Gilead. He tells us that though Nick helped her to escape we don’t know her fate after that.
Summary of Surfacing?
Surfacing (1972)
Plot
The unnamed narrator is in search of her father. She lives in Quebec and has Joe as her boyfriend. She visits her father’s friend Paul who cannot provide any information to her about her father. Evans is a guide who takes her to the island where her father lived. She believes that her father is still alive after becoming mad. She has a job as a Freelancer as an illustrator of fairy tales. She agrees to live in the island as suggested. David starts insulting Anna who confesses that he is a womanizer. Joe proposes to the narrator during a trip to a nearby island and she refuses telling him about her last husband and child whom she left.
Malmstrom claims to a wildlife agent from Detroit who wants to purchase the island which is rejected by the narrator. David accuses Malmstrom to be an C.I.A. agent.
The narrator goes through the records to find out that her father researched about Indian Wall painting and is probably dead. They see a decomposed blue heron while going for a trip to find the paintings. She is haunted by the sight. They assume that the campers there are Americans but are surprised to know that they are Canadians. But she still believes them to be American as they killed the Heron.
She finds out one more area in the map but it is filled with water. Anna feels humiliated when David asks her take off her cloths for samples. David claims that Anna cheats on him and that is why he is torturing her. The narrator dives to find out the paintings but is scared and comes back when she sees disturbing objects. She realizes that she has seen a dead child who was aborted. She tells everyone that she has an affair with an art professor and she was forced to abort the baby.
She has visions about her father finding sacred sites of Indian Paintings and thanks god for letting her find the place. Joe tries to rape her but she tells him that she will become pregnant and he leaves her. She is abele to resist David’s advances as well. He tells her that the police has found her father’s body. She becomes mad and seduces Joe to be become pregnant to replace the child. She abandon her friends and destroys David’s film to escape in a canoe. She become madder without anyone. She destroys everything including her art. She runs around naked like animals and eats raw leaves. She thinks that she is raising a baby and has vision about her parents. She becomes sane due to being hungry for many days. At the end, Paul and Joe arrive and she goes with them feeling love for Joe.
Summary of Blind Assassins?
Blind Assassins (2000)
It won the Man Booker Prize and Hammett Prize
Plot
It is about Iris Chase and her sister Laura who grew up in Southern Ontario without mother. She remembers about her childhood and young age. She had an unhappy married life with Richard Griffen, a businessman from Toronto.
The book has a novel within a novel about Alex Thomas, a pulp fiction writer who was a radical. There is a third tale about a Blind Assassin, written by Alex.
The novel talks about Iris’s youth and about their time during the Second World War. They lives in a house where their mother died leaving them with their caretaker named Reenie.
The novel within the novel seems to be inspired from real events. It is later revealed that the novel within a novel has Iris as its real writer and protagonist. It was written by Iris based on her extramarital affair with Alex. She published it in Laura’s name. Laura commits suicide after knowing about Alex’s death in the second world war. Iris comes to know thought Laura’s journals that she was raped by Richard after their marriage and blackmailed her to take Alex to the authorities. Iris threatens him to reveal that he has impregnated Laura and forced her to abort her child, Aimee becomes estranged with her due that. Richard commits suicide when Iris tells that Laura had an affair with Alex. In the end, Iris dies and the truth is only revealed in her autobiography after her death.
About Chinua Achebe?
Chinua Achebe
Born on November 15, 1930 in Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria.
His family belonged to the Igbo tribe. His parents abandoned the traditional religion to follow Christianity because they were convinced by the British colonial government to do so. But Chinua Achebe was always curious about Nigerian traditions.
Summary of Things Fall Apart?
Things Fall Apart (1958)
It is novel about the pre-colonial era in Nigeria when the European arrived in the 19th century.
It was followed by its sequel No Longer at Ease (1960)
Plot
It is about Okonkwo, a wrestling champion of Umuofia village in Nigeria. He wanted to erase the memory of his father Unoka known for not taking care of his wife and children and not paying debts. Okonkwo has three wives and many children whom he often beats up to show his masculinity. He becomes rich and famous in the village and a leader too. He became the guardian of Ikemefuna whose father was killed by an Umuofian woman. He is fond of him but the oracle of Umuofia announces that he has to be killed. Ezeudu asks Okonkwo not to be part of the killing of Ikemefuna, but to show his masculinity he kills him and felt guilty later. He feels traumatized for that. His daughter becomes sick and he kill Ezeudu’s son by miskate during Ezeudu’s funeral and he is exiled to his mother’s village named Mbanta for seven years.
After coming back he sees that his village has white people. A convert commits the crime of unmasking a senior member of the clan having ancestral spirit. The villagers destroyed the church in response and the District Commissioner take Okonkwo and others as prisoners who are humiliated by the court messengers disrespect the leaders. The people of the village want to rise against the British and Okonkwo wants to go for a war. He beheads one of the white man who came to stop the meeting. The people of Umuofia don’t support him and allows others to escape. It is different from how he envisioned the traditional response of his society.
The District Commissioner comes to take him to court but find him hanging himself so that he is not humiliated in the court.
Summary of Slave Girl?
Slave Girl (1977) It is set in Nigeria in the early 1900s.
Plot
It is about Ogbanje Ojebeta who is sold to slavery after her parents’ death. Her parents Okwuekwu and Umedi. Ukabegwu’s wife, who was considered unclean, helps them when Umedi is in labour and may lose her child. She gave birth to Ogbanje Ojebeta. The novel depicts the condition of African woman in labour during the pregnancy and how they deal with it without the help of the men.
Ojebeta’s parents died of a disease called Felenza. To save Ojebeta, Okoli left the village and went to Ontisha. Uteh and her husband Eze did not allow them to continue with the journey but they still continued it. Okoli sells her sister and get eight pounds. She married Jacob as a slave. She took care of the children of Victoria. Victoria told that she will have her freedom after serving for her. Ojebeta goes to her town later. Clifford comes to take Ojebeta from Jacob because his mother paid the money to her brother. Now Jacob has to pay the price. Jacob gave eight pounds to him and become the new ‘owner’. She was happy to have Jacob as her master.
Summary of Famished Road?
Ben Okri
Nigerian Writer
Famished Road (1991) Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1991.
Plot
Azaro is a spirit-child from Africa(abiku). He is constantly asked to leave the life by other spirits from another world. They send people to bring him but he loves his parents and declines to go back. His mother is a hawker and father a labourer. He is asked by a local bar owner Madame Koto to come to her bar for having a better luck at getting costumers. Different political parties want him to vote for them and his father prepares himself to be a boxer and tries to make the family meet the requirements. Later he also ventures into politics. Madame Koto sides with the politicians and the rich. She takes the blood of Azaro’s blood to remain young.
Summary of A Grain of Wheat?
Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
A Grain of Wheat
The title is taken from the Gospel of St. Joh 12:24.
Plot
It starts with the celebration of Kenya’s independence day celebration(Uhuru). General R and Koinandu are planning to execute the traitor who betrayed Kihika which is a fighter from the village who fought in the resistance.
Mugo doesn’t want to give speech as he is an introvert. He is thought to be a hero as he was in prison during the emergency. However, he has betrayed a hero named Kihika who joined Mau Mau rebellion who killed the cruel district Officer Robson. He was captured due to Mugo. General R believe it was Karanja who was a traitor and want to kill him.
Karanja is at Githima in a Forest Research Station. He is working for the white men like the D.O. Thompson wants to leave the place before every white person goes back.
Mugo tells Mumbi that he has betrayed Kihika, but she doesn’t want anyone to be killed by her brother.
General R asks the traitor to come forward thinking that Karanja will admit his fault, but Mugo accepts that it was him who betrayed the movement. He was spared by the crowd and was arrested to go for a private trial. He accepts his punishment. Karanja goes to Githima and considers killing himself but decides against it.
Gikonyo agrees to reunite with Mumbi and wants to talk about the child. He will carve a stool with an image of a pregnant Mumbi.
Summary of July’s People?
Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)
She was a South African Novelist and a political activist. She won the Nobel Prize in 1991.
July’s People (1981)
Plot
It is about Maureen and Bamford Smales, who are a white couple and the relationship they have with their servant, July. During a war they escape to the north in their suburban home. They are hiding there with their servant July. The novel deals with all the relatives and friends in July’s village who can be called ‘July’s people’ and how they Smales cannot reality become anything more than liberal white people and forget about their relationship with their servant.
Summary of The Conservationist?
The Conservationist (1974)
It won the Booker -McConnell Prize
Plot
It is about Mehring who is a white businessman whose ex-wife is in America and his son Terry criticises his traditional views. He buys a 400 acre farm in the outskirts of the city to find higher meaning of life. He has no idea about farming which is run by black workers.
A black person’s body is found but the police doesn’t bother to search for the killer. The image of the dead body started haunting Mehring. The body comes back due to the flood and the villagers give him a burial. It is shown that Merhing’s burial won’t have any of the emotions attached to this one as he is not seen as a family member by the community for being white and rich.
Summary of Life and Times of Michael K
John Maxwell Coetze (1940- )
Born in Cape Town, South Africa.
Won the Nobel Prize in 2003.
Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
He won the Booker prize for the novel in 1983. It is inspired from Kafka’s The Trial. The title K. reminds us of Joseph K. in Kafka’s The Trial.
Plot
It is about Michael K. who makes a journey to Cape Town to the birthplace of his mother during the civil was in apartheid era in 1970s and 80s. He doesn’t get the permit to travel out of his city. He builds a rickshaw and go along with his mother but she dies in the hospital. He continues his journey to give his mother’s ashes to Prince Albert. He works for railway after being detained and after his track is finished he lives off the land. He leaves for the mountains where he starves but finds his way down to work in a work camp. He meets Robert. There is an attack on Prince Albert and the workers are blamed for the attack. After many escapes and being malnourished he reaches Cape Town to the same place he tried to escape.
Summary of Disgrace?
Disgrace (1999)
It won the Man Booker Prize
Plot
It is about David Lurie, an English Professor in South Africa who sleep with a vulnerable student Melanie and loses his job. He goes to her lesbian daughter Lucy in a farm in the Eastern Cape.
He tries to have a good relationship with her daughter as it has become complicated due to his relationship with his wife.
The farm is attacked by three black men who rape Lucy and shoot the dogs. She becomes pregnant but doesn’t want to abort the child. David wants her to abort the child and file a case against the men, but she doesn’t want to go out the black dominated village she is living in. she feels it is karma for the atrocities that the black people had to go through during the apartheid.
He goes back to his college to find out that his house has been attacked and looted by robbers or students who are protesting against his affair.
Lucy decides to marry the farmer living in the neighbourhood against the wished of her father.
