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Robert Frost (dates)
The Road Not Taken (1916)
Summary: Speaker contemplates "two roads diverged in the woods", takes the one less traveled, "kept the first for another day" but knows will never return to it; Will be "telling with a sigh" in future
Themes: Life is a journey; justifying his decision, but really just has to choose; created reality; reliability of narrator; fate vs. choice
Relevance: Being honest about creating a reality to deal with uncertainty of life |
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Robert Frost
Mending Wall (1914)
Summary: Stone wall separates two neighbors' land, in spring jointly make repairs; Speaker doesn't think wall necessary (no livestock), no walls for sake of walls; "Good fences make good neighbors," says neighbor, relying on outmoded thinking/adage, not swayed by questioning of speaker; "Something there is that doesn't love a wall"
Themes: Connection/disconnection, striving for new approaches, fragmentation produced by old thinking (Modernist mourning) |
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Term
| In a Station of the Metro |
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Definition
Ezra Pound (dates)
In a Station of the Metro
Genre & Form: imagist, haiku-ish
Summary: The apparitions of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
Themes: Direct treatment of the thing; no Tennysonian language; capture experience; transience; impression; moment of empathy and connection |
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| The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock |
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T.S. Eliot (dates)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Genre & Form: internal soliloquy/poetic monologue, forerunner to confessional poetry, persona poem, poem of paralysis, exploration of self-pity, elegiac
Summary: Dirty London, "yellow fog" kitty imagery, evening "like a patient etherized upon a table", paralysis; "Women come and go / talking of Michelangelo", pinnacle artist that speaker cannot live up to; "There will be time" repeated, approaching death; "Do I dare disturb the universe?", No; "Measured out my life by coffee spoons", objective correlative of tedium; fear, panic, desire; "Not Prince Hamlet"; "I grow old"
Themes: "gynophobia"; postindustrial, urban loneliness; decision by indecision; Death of potentiality; self-sabotage
Connections: Dubliners; Road Not Taken; Socially awkward penguin/forever alone |
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Term
| The Negro Speaks of Rivers |
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Definition
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)
Summary: "I've known rivers"; "My soul has grown deep like the rivers"; Euphrates, Congo, Nile, Mississippi, New Orleans
Themes: Timelessness; Ancestral knowledge and connection (to African past)
Relevance: Belief in genetic racial differences, separatist |
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Langston Hughes
Jazzonia (1923)
Genre & Form: jazz poetry, Harlem Renaissance
Summary: "Oh, silver tree! Oh, shining rivers of the soul! In a Harlem cabaret Six long-headed jazzers play", dancing girls, bold Eve's eyes, Cleopatra
Themes: celebration of female power and boldness, transgression, subversion (the Fall, the tree, Jazz art form, cabaret), breaking from polite society |
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Langston Hughes
I, Too (1945)
Summary: "I, too, sing/am America"; once sent to the kitchen to eat, "grow strong", then eat at the table with company, no one will "dare" send to kitchen; "They'll see how beautiful I am / And be ashamed"
Themes: Rising power, respect, independence for blacks; claiming a place in America, American identity |
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Adrienne Rich (dates)
Planetarium (1968)
Characters: "Thinking of Caroline Herschel, astronomer", speaker
Summary: "Galaxies of women", constellations; "What we see, we see and seeing is changing"; "all of my life in the direct path of a battery of signals" (ideology); woman's body as a cosmic tuning fork image: "for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind"
Themes: Science as a means of changing, looking to something new, to finding relief; female in tune with universe; resiliency of women/humanity; moving away from female sentimentality (objectively created emotional reader experience); use of visual space
Connections: Sonnet to Science |
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Sylvia Plath (dates)
Fever 103 (1965)
Genre & Form: confessional, vision poem
Summary: Purity? "dull, fat Cerberus"; "the sin, the sin"; "Isadora's scarves"; "hothouse baby"; "chicken water, water make me retch"; heat imagery: candles, radiation, Hiroshima, Japanese lantern, flashing; "I am a pure acetylene virgin"; "my selves dissolving" ... "to Paradise"
Themes: Physical illness initiating mental breakdown, madness; body/mind; Negative domestic and love imagery; female sexuality; social limits on women; transcendence; Heat; purity; whiteness; commentary on religion
Connections: "I felt a Funeral in my Brain" |
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Arthur Miller (dates)
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Genre & Form: tragedy, family drama, social commentary
Characters: Willy Loman, Linda, Biff, Happy, Charley (neighbor), Bernard (C's son), Ben (Willy's bro, to Alaska, diamond mine in Africa), "the woman" (Willy's mistress)
Summary: Flute melody; Linda wants W to work in NY and not travel, W says speak with boss, never does; complains that B needs to make something of himself, live up to W's expectations; B and H talk about working a farm in the west; W fantasizes B football star, Bernard good in school but not "well liked", tried to help B with math; Laughter of mistress, stockings; W upset didn't take advantage of bro's offer; L tries to be mediator between W and B; W fired; W takes money, not job from Charley; B's "big deal" talked up, but a lie; W planting seeds; Crashes car in attempt to get insurance money; L "We're free"
Themes: Death/Myth of the American Dream; Reconciling past, present, future; Lying, facades; Fantasy, delusions; Madness; Suicide; Living vicariously; Keeping up appearances; Capitalism; Fragmentation; Male identity confused with material success; Son/father relationships; Abandonment; Betrayal; Youth/Age |
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| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf |
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Definition
Edward Albee (dates)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962)
Genre & Form: family tragedy, drama
Characters: George, Martha, Nick (new university faculty), Honey
Summary: After faculty party, back late to G and M's house; M taunts G, "flop" professor, never takes over presidency from M's dad; M tells H about son, G angry she tells; M flirts with N, tells mean stories about G (knocked him out boxing); G threatens M with (fake) gun; H drunk/sick; N married H over hysterical pregnancy and money; M and N dance sexy; G attacks M over her taunts, H yells "violence"; new "games", hump the hostess, get the guests, declare total war; M and N kissing, G gives her to N; G will "kill" son, laughs and cries; M and N offstage, impotent; M grieves lost love with G; G at door with snapdragons, tells made up stories, G and M turn on N; new game bringing up baby, talk fondly about son, G "kills" son because M told others about him; Who's Afraid? M: "I am"
Themes: Alcohol(ism); Lies/truth, delusion; Woolf - raw truth teller; Marriage (old and new); Generational cycles; Domestic abuse/violence; Games |
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F. Scott Fitzgerald (dates)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Genre & Form: a novel of manners, tragedy
Characters: Nick (narrator), Jay Gatsby/James Gatz, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Jordan, Myrtle and George Wilson
Summary: Set 1922 Long Island, Valley of Ashes; N w/ T and M to NY affair apartment, M taunts T about D, T breaks her nose; At night G stares at green light at end of D's dock; N sets up meeting between G and D, love rekindled, affair; T forces all to a hotel in NY, confronts G and accuses of illegally getting money, D realizes allegiance with T, T contemptuously sends G and D back together; G's car hits and kills M (D driving), T tells George G hit M, George assumes G is lover, shoots and suicide; N leaves NY
Themes: East/west (egg): Old/new money; Marriage; Infidelity; Reconciling past, present, future; Death of the American Dream; Corruption of money, materialism; Fantasy/lies; (Invented) identity; New Woman; Concern with appearances; Classism |
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William Faulkner (dates)
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Genre & Form: experimental, tragedy
Characters: Compson family: Jason III (father, dead of alcoholism), Caroline (mother, self-absorbed hypochondriac), Quentin, Caddy, Jason IV, Benjy, Miss Quentin (Caddy's bastard child); Dilsey (cook); Uncle Maury
Summary: Chapter 1: April 1928, Benjy; Ch 2: June 1910 Quentin; Ch 3: April 1928 Jason; Ch 4: Omniscient narrator, focus on Dilsey; Mom only cares for Jason; Caddy mother figure for bros, promiscuous, pregnant, marries and divorced; Dad dies; Quentin depressed over Caddy, last year Harvard student, commits suicide; Jason discontented head of household, Dilsey raising Miss Q, J stealing her money, Miss Q runs off with a man, J can't stop her
Themes: Fragmentation; Deterioration of family and Southern aristocratic class; Family, ancestry; Identity; Female sexuality; Old/new world; Classism; Materialism; Time "I seed da beginin, and now I sees da endin" --Dilsey |
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Ernest Hemingway (dates)
The Sun Also Rises
Genre & Form: Travel logue, novel of disillusionment
Characters: Jake Barnes (narrator), Lady Ashley/Brett, Mike (engaged to Brett), Robert Cohn, Bill, Pedro Romero, Montoya, Francis (Cohn's girlfriend), Georgette (prostitute), Count Mippipopolous
Summary: Paris: Jake impotent, loves Brett, dinner with Georgette; Brett and Cohn affair; Spain: Burguete, fishing trip with Bill, pastoral moment; Pamplona: Bullfight fiesta, Cohn like a puppy w/ Brett, Mike angry with Cohn, Brett loves Romero, Jakes sets her up with him; Bullfight; Cohn fights J, M, R, cries and sorry, J accepts apology, R refuses handshake; J gets B from R, end in cab
Themes: Alcohol(ism); the Lost Generation; negative effects of the war; Impotence (literal and figurative), Castration; male/female and male/male relationships; Maleness; the New Woman, the new man; Fragmentation/connection, violence; Numbness, escape |
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Ralph Ellison (dates)
Invisible Man (1952)
Genre & Form: existentialist, social protest, bildungsroman; end perspective, frame?
Characters: Narrator (unnamed), Brother Jack (leader of the Brotherhood, glass eye and red hair, blindness and communism), Todd Cliffton (black, charismatic leader of BroHood), Ras the Exhorter (represents violent Black Nationalist Movement), Reinhart (shapeshifting capacity, narrator mistaken for him), Dr. Bledsoe (pres. of college), Mr. Norton (white trustee of college), Jim Trueblood (impregnates daughter), Mary (motherly, narrator lives with her), Sybil (rape fantasy)
Summary: Invisible because other refuse to see him; Growing up in late 20s; Battle Royale, gets briefcase and scholarship, dream of "keep this nigger boy running"; College, drives Norton around, lunatic veterans bar The Golden Day; Expelled, sent to NY with 7 damaging letters of rec; Job at white paint co, explosion, loses memory for awhile, taken to Mary; Speech at old black couple eviction, spokesperson for BroHood for which he alters his identity; Harlem loses faith in BroHood; Cliffton leaves BroHood, sells Sambo dolls, shot by police, funeral speech; Outcast by BroHood and Ras; Wants revenge on BroHood, will subvert; Riot started by Ras, falls into sewer
Themes: Racism, race relations; Power; Death of the American Dream; Identity; Individual/society; Social expectations based on race |
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Toni Morrison (dates)
Beloved (1987)
Genre & Form: Tragedy, slavery narrative, ghost story, magical realism
Characters: Setha, Denver, Beloved, Paul D, Baby Suggs, Schoolteacher, Halle, Lady Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Garner (owners of Sweet Home), Ella, Mr. and Miss Bodwin (siblings), Amy Denver, Paul A, Paul F, Sixo, Stamp Paid, Howard and Buglur
Summary: Earlier ~1851, Kentucky; Present 1873, Cincinnati; Sethe never knew her mom, chooses to marry Halle, Garner dies, Mrs. sick and hires bro-in-law Schoolteacher and his 2 nephews, slaves try to escape, kill Sixo, nephews steal her milk, Halle sees and goes crazy, butter on his face, Paul D bit in his mouth, S tells Mrs, ST whips her pregnant; Escapes, helped by Amy, SP helps her escape to Baby; Baby a preacher; ST comes, kills Beloved, arrested but released by abolitionists, now shunned by community; Paul D on chain gang, escapes; PD chases away ghost, Denver lonely, after carnival Beloved appears; D obsessed w/ B, B and S obsessed with each other; PD forced out by B; S declining in health; D seeks help from Lady Jones, Ella organizes exorcism in community, Mr. Bodwin arrives to take D to new job, S tries to attack him, B disappears, "You your best thing, Sethe" (not B)
Themes: Evils of slavery; Past, memory, haunting; Individual/society; Need for community; Guilt, shame, grief; Madness; Family attachment; Isolation, loneliness
Relevance: Paul D's tin tobacco box of his heart; Tree whip marks; Squares of color |
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| Their Eyes Were Watching God |
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Definition
Zora Neal Hurston (dates)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) Harlem Renaissance
Genre & Form: bildungsroman, frame narrative
Characters: Janie, Logan, Jody Starks, Teacake, Sam and Phoebe Watson, Nanny Crawford (grandma), Mrs. Turner
Summary: 16 y-o, first kiss, pear tree, Nanny marries her to Logan; Jody sweeps her off, helps found Eatonville, mayor, owns store, controlling and jealous; Culture in town, donkey, debates; Jody dies; J runs off with TC to Everglades; Miss Turner's racism; woman trying to sleep with TC, J makes him jealous, hits her; Hurricane, TC bit by rabid dog, J has to shoot him, trial for murder, acquitted by the sympathy of white women; J returns to Eatonville
Themes: Nature vs. caution; Independence, Loneliness and relationships; Marriage, love; Race; Gender; Community; Image of the horizon |
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John Steinbeck (dates)
Of Mice and Men (1937)
Genre & Form: Tragedy, novella
Characters: George, Lennie, Curly, Curly's wife, Crooks (black, isolated), Candy (old, missing hand, wants to join in farm fantasy), Candy's dog, Slim (authority on ranch, mule driver), Carlson, Aunt Clara, the Boss (Curly's dad, ranch owner)
Summary: Set in California 1930s, Great Depression; Traveling to ranch, camp, Lennie threatened with lynching in past for grabbing woman's dress, said rape; G lies that they are cousins and L kicked in head by horse, hired by Boss; Curly's wife flirts with them, disappointed in life with Curly; Slim insightful into G & L's friendship; Carlson says Slim should give new born puppy to Candy and shoot old dog; G tells Slim about past with Lennie, friends since childhood; Candy agrees to put dog out of misery, under pressure from Carlson; Curly searching for wife, picks on Lennie, Lennie crushes his hand, Slim protects L; L and Crooks bond; L kills puppy and wife; G kills L
Themes: Need for connection; Loneliness; Power of future plans/fantasy; Migrant workers; Home; Mercy; Racism; Social outcasts; Fear and misunderstanding over difference |
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Cormac McCarthy (dates)
The Road (2006)
Genre & Form: post-apocalyptic, dystopian, speculative fiction
Characters: the man, the boy, the old man (Ely, anti-prophet), the woman, "the road rat", "the veteran of old skirmishes" (scarred guy at end)
Summary: Unknown apocalyptic event; Woman leaves to die, now hope; Traveling the road, excursions for supplies and shelter, flashbacks; Rapist, killer, cannibals, the road rat grabs the boy and the man shoots him in the head; Basement of human livestock, almost get caught; Apple orchard and well; Bomb shelter with canned food; Boy gives food to old man (ungrateful) against man; Man sick, wrecked ship, boy sick; Guy steals cart, man steals back everything, boy makes man give thief back some stuff; Man shot by arrow in leg, dies eventually; Boy meets "good guys" family
Themes: (Loss of) humanity; Survival; Morality; hope(lessness); Youth/age; Family; Generations |
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Term
| The House on Mango Street |
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Definition
Sandra Cisneros (dates)
The House on Mango Street (1984)
Genre & Form: novel in vignettes, buldungsroman, kunstlerroman
Characters: Esperanza Cordero (narrator), Nenne (sis), Rachel and Lucy, Sally (flirtatious, abusive dad, marries controlling man), Marin (PR, always babysitting), Mama, Papa, Alicia (attends university, forced to care for family after mom dies), Cathy (white, doesn't like R and L), Vargas kids (poorly raised "vagrant" kids), Aunt Lupe
Summary: Esperanza growing up in Chicago among Chicanos and Puerto Ricans, starts around 12 years old, first moving to Mango St.; E disappointed in the house; E making friends, maturing mentally and sexually (hips, first crush), endures sexual assault (clowns), begins to write for personal expression; Promise to come back for "the ones I left behind"
Themes: Latino/a identity, culture, community; Poverty; Segregation; Isolation; Freedom/limits; Women's roles; Family; House vs. home; Child/Adult worlds; Generations; Sexuality; Desire for escape/change |
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John Cheever (dates)
The Swimmer (1964)
Genre & Form: short story, surrealistic
Characters: Neddy Merrill, Lucinda (wife), neighbors
Summary: Upper (moving towards) middle class neighborhood; Starts in midsummer, Neddy, wife, and 2 neighbors sit at pool, drinking, hungover; N feels young and energetic, wants to swim across the county, explorer, looks forward to pools and friends; Stops for drinks, party, no one home, storm; Fall leaves (time has passed but he still thinks summer), friends moved away, failing or repressed memories?; Difficult highway crossing; Disgusted by public pool; Friends say "sorry for all the misfortunes", N in denial, feels cold and weak, Winter, years passing; Rejected at lower social class party, overhears that someone has lost all money and borrows; Crying, cold, confused, needs drink, returns to his empty house
Themes: Decline (social, economic, physical); Fluid time; Death of the American Dream; Alcohol(ism), escape/loss of reality; Madness; (End of) exploration; Isolation |
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