John Gardner's "On Moral Fiction" John Gardner's "On Moral Fiction" is a fine example of fictional analysis. After reading the excerpt assigned in class, I was in awe at the truth and reality presented. I had never thought of morality in that sense and found it t...

Nick as Narrator When the novel first begins Nick begins telling us how he reserves all judgments for people, reflecting on his father's words of advice, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (5). He holds true to this...

The Rock The core character of a novel is responsible for maintaining the stability of society within the novel, exhibiting qualities of a true hero, and constantly emphasizing the novel's central themes. Atticus serves as this core in To Kill A Mockingbird. He leads his kids not just by telli...

Crime and Punishment is a book written by Fyodor Dostoevsky who spent four years at a labour camp in Siberia, followed by four years of military service. Raskolnikov's time in a Siberian prison, described in the Epilogue of Crime and Punishment, is based on Dostoevsky's own experiences at a similar ...

In The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, the character of Mademoiselle Reisz is first introduced by the narrator as, "a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled with almost everyone, owning to a temper which was self-assertive and a disposition to trample upon the right...

William Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies, is a story about a group of good English boys, who's plane is shot down, and plummets onto a deserted island, trying to flee from war. After landing on the island, they try to organize a structure to the new society they are forced to live in. Th...

Faulkner's novel, The Sound and the Fury, shows the decline of a well-established and well-known southern aristocratic family. The novel's main focuses are the moral decay of the Compson family and time (not letting go of the past). Throughout the novel we see how the values of the Comps...

Atticus is obviously the most important person in To Kill A Mockingbird. At the beginning of the novel there is little indication of this because Scout and Jem show very little respect toward him. They are even embarrassed by his age because he doesn't hunt and fish like all of the other parent...

Chinese writer Lin Yutang once said, "Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother." However, the word mother does not always apply to a woman who gives birth to a child, but a woman who gives maternal love and tenderness. The role of mother in the novel Obasan was passed dow...

"I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known." This quotation, made by Nick, is moderately true. He was not a completely honest man, but he was not as corrupt as the other characters. Gary J. Scrimgeour comments that Nick was neither honest nor high-principled. The only reaso...

"KINDRED" BY OCTAVIA E. BUTLER Kindred was the very first book by Octavia Butler that I read. Unlike many science-fiction writers, she spends no time discussing the dynamics of time travel, which for a tale of this emotional magnitude, is a good thing. Kindred is hard book to read...

Catch-22: A Study in Post-War Attitudes by Chris Nicholson In 1961, Joseph Heller published Catch-22, his first novel. Based on his own war experiences, the novel wickedly satirized bureaucracy, patriotism, and all manner of traditional American ideals. This was reflective of the increas...

After reading both novels Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass I can now compare and contrast both authors and their way of interpreting slave life to the reader. Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811. She was the seventh child of a famous protestant preac...

MARY SHELLEY"S FRANKENSTEIN When first published in 1818, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein awakened its readers to many issues. Despite the frivolous adaptations produced for the entertainment of popular culture in later years, Shelly's classic tale denotes great depth and meaning. The pe...

There are many aspects of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy that involve the moral decision versus the immoral decision and God. The main theme that Dreiser maintains throughout the novel is Immorality. Each character in the novel possesses one or more characteristics that show that he or she i...

In the novel Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, suffering is an integral part of every character's role. Dostoevsky uses comic characters as instruments for competing ideological issues. A typical example is the loquacious bar room character Marmeladov, an alcoholic with an ironic abstract...

In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen portrays her views of 19th century English society by depicting characters that are able to overcome both their own weaknesses and the flaws of society as a whole to uncover the reality that lies hidden behind ignorance, prejudice and pride. With sarcastic humor a...

How does Faulkner direct and shape the reader's reaction's to the story? Faulkner takes advantage of flashbacks while he is constructing his narrative in order to accomplish a great effect of suspense. First, the narrator presents some fictional facts that provide verisimilitude to the ...

Beyond a Whore Daniel Defoe's novel depicts a woman that uses her resources to achieve her financial and economic desires. To the audience, whoever that may be it may seem that Moll Flanders is a money hungry harlot who does not have any regard to anyone but herself. Instead Moll uses her...

Johnny Cade In The Outsiders, a fictional novel about fights and gangs, the author SE Hinton reveals lessons of life through Johnny Cade, an innocent boy in the middle of a hateful, hostile environment. Johnny is often described as an innocent puppy, but by the end of his life, he comes out of his ...

Jack (and his tribe) represent anarchy. Jack did not have the integrity to keep the Beast at bay. He is the perpetrator of all three deaths that occur on the island and wishes to spend his time hunting (killing) instead of helping Ralph with rescue. Jack Merridew is a young boy, probably the ...

The Progression of the Eighteenth Century Novel Shows How Society Takes Over the Role of God The progression of the Eighteenth Century novel charts the transformation of the role of God into the role of society. In Daniel Defoe's early Eighteenth Century novel, Robinson Crusoe, God make...

Atticus Finch is a character of stability in an unstable society. He is a balanced figure who is able to cope with the unreasonable and highly emotional town in which he lives. He can manage the prejudiced white masses and still deal justly with the underprivileged Negro population of Maycomb. He...

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. In 1846, his book Poor Folk brought him instant success as a writer (Sher). This success however, was cut short due to an arrest because of his active participation in printing and distributing socialist propaganda (Sher). While in prison, Dostoevsky ...

During 1848, shortly after the appearance of Jane Eyre, Victorians themselves believed that the Victorian novel was the genre least likely to survive into the next generation. A novel based only on the mores and customs of Victorian society would surely hold limited value today, except as a historic...