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| (Death of a Salesman) A sixty year old salesman living in Brooklyn, Willy Loman is a gregarious, mercurial man with powerful aspirations to success. However, after thirty-five years working as a traveling salesman throughout New England, Willy Loman feels defeated by his lack of success and difficult family life. Although he has a dutiful wife, his relationship with his oldest son, Biff, is strained by Biff's continual failures. As a salesman, Willy Loman focuses on personal details over actual measures of success, believing that it is personality and not high returns that garner success in the business world. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) The Lomans' next door neighbor and father of Bernard, Charley is a good businessman, exemplifying the success that Willy is unable to achieve. Although Willy claims that Charley is a man who is "liked, but not well-liked," he owns his own business and is respected and admired. He and Willy have a contentious relationship, but Charley is nevertheless Willy's only friend. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) The thirty-four year old son of Willy Loman, Biff was once a star high school athlete with a scholarship to UVA. But he never attended college nor graduated from high school, after refusing to attend summer school to make up a flunked math class. He did this primarily out of spite after finding out that his father was having an affair with a woman in Boston. Since then, Biff has been a continual failure, stealing at every job and even spending time in jail. Despite his failures and anger toward his father, Biff still has great concern for what his father thinks of him, and the conflict between the two characters drives the narrative of the play. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) Bernard is Charley's only son. He is intelligent and industrious but lacks the gregarious personality of either of the Loman sons. It is this absence of spirit that makes Willy believe that Bernard will never be a true success in the business world, but Bernard proves himself to be far more successful than Willy imagined. As a grown-up, he is a lawyer preparing to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) The dutiful, obedient wife to Willy and mother of Biff and Happy, Linda Loman is the one person who supports Willy Loman, despite his often reprehensible treatment of her. She is a woman who has aged greatly because of her difficult life with her husband, whose hallucinations and erratic behavior she contends with alone. She is the moral center of the play, occasionally stern and not afraid to confront her sons about their poor treatment of their father. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) Willy's older brother, Ben left home at seventeen to find their father in Alaska, but ended up in Africa, where he found diamond mines and came out of the jungle at twenty-one an incredibly rich man. Although Ben died several weeks before the time at which the play is set, he often appears in Willy's hallucinations, carrying a valise and umbrella. Ben represents the fantastic success for which Willy has always hoped but can never seem to achieve. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) The younger of the two Loman sons, Happy Loman is seemingly content and successful, with a steady career and none of the obvious marks of failure that his older brother displays. Happy, however, is not content with his more stable life, because he has never risked failure or striven for any real measure of success. Happy is a compulsive womanizer who treats women purely as sex objects and has little respect for the many women whom he seduces. |
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| (Death of a Salesman) The thirty-six year old son of Frank Wagner, Willy Loman's former boss, Howard now occupies the same position as his late father. Although Willy was the one who named Howard, Howard is forced to fire Willy for his erratic behavior. Howard is preoccupied with technology; when Willy meets with his new boss, he spends most of the meeting demonstrating his new wire recorder. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) This central character is presented as a tragic as well as a comic hero. Because of his greed and pride, he loses his business, constituting a tragic downfall; but his moral decision to live for others raises him spiritually, bringing him to a happy, peaceful state of mind in the end. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Silas' wife, and a schoolteacher. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) The younger daughter of the Laphams. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Silas Lapham finds Bromfield Corey to be offensively aristocratic. Bromfield is the spokesman for the intelligent, aristocratic class, although he says that to his relief he has found himself to be of common clay rather than porcelain. "If I get broken," he says, "I can be easily replaced." |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) The older daughter of Silas and Persis. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Bromfield's wife. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) in a way, replaces the son Silas Lapham lost at birth. Silas takes him as a son-in-law and as an employee. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Lily Corey is a frail girl who, like many romantic women, lives off her family's wealth. Her character is not developed. Nanny The Corey's youngest child. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Silas forced Rogers out the paint business after he had made a start with his partner's capital. A tallish, thin man with dust-colored face and a dead, clerical air, which somehow suggested at once feebleness and tenacity, Rogers reappears to ask Silas for a loan. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) Mr. Seymour is Lapham's architect. He saves Silas from making a great deal of artistic blunders when building his house. |
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| (The Rise of Silas Lapham ) A minister and counselor to Lapham when Penelope refuses to marry Tom Corey. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Julian West, the narrator of Looking Backward, was born into an aristocratic nineteenth-century family. A sufferer of insomnia, he built a sleeping chamber under his house to shield himself from the street noises in Boston. One night, Julian falls asleep with the aid of Doctor Pillsbury a skilled mesmerist. His house burns down during the night, but Julian is protected by his underground chamber. Julian is assumed dead, but, a hundred years later, Doctor Leete discovers the chamber while preparing the site for the construction of a laboratory. Julian has not aged a day, because his body was in a state of suspended animation. Julian awakes to an entirely different world--a world without war and poverty. Through Doctor Leete, Julian learns how these problems have been solved by basing the economy on public rather than private capital. Compared to the nineteenth century, the new world is an astonishing utopia. Every citizen is accorded a high standard of living, and the new economy is vastly more efficient than the old one. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Doctor Leete is a representative of the twentieth century. When preparing a site for the construction of a laboratory, he discovers an underground sleeping chamber from the nineteenth century. Inside the chamber, he finds Julian West in a state of suspended animation. Doctor Leete helps Julian to understand the vast changes that have overcome the nation in the last century. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Edith Leete is the intelligent, attractive daughter of Doctor Leete and his wife. She offers Julian a great deal of emotional support during the bewildering and difficult process of adjusting to twentieth-century society. Over time, she and Julian fall in love and become engaged, at which point Edith reveals that she is the great-granddaughter of Edith Bartlett Julian's fiancée from the nineteenth century. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Mrs. Leete is Doctor Leete kind, compassionate wife. She is the granddaughter of Edith Bartlett Julian's nineteenth-century fiancée. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Edith Bartlett was Julian's nineteenth-century aristocratic fiancée. Like Julian, she considered the wide gap between the rich and poor in her day a natural, irremediable condition of human society. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Because he suffered from insomnia, Julian enlisted the help of Doctor Pillsbury a skilled mesmerist. Doctor Pillsbury never failed to put Julian into a deep sleep. Pillsbury trained Sawyer, Julian's servant, to bring Julian out of a mesmerized sleep. |
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| (Looking Backwars) Mr. Barton is a twentieth-century preacher. After Julian is discovered in his underground sleeping chamber, Mr. Barton is inspired to deliver a sermon about the vast improvements of twentieth-century society over that of the nineteenth century. After hearing the sermon, Julian becomes depressed, because he realizes that he contributed to the barbaric and inhumane nature of nineteenth-century society. |
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| (The Octopus) A poet searching for a plot, as well as a surveyor of the dilemma between the ranchers and the railroad. The novel begins with him, riding his bicycle across the countryside, and ends with him as well. He lives on Los Muertos with the Derricks as a friend of the family. The character appears to parallel the author, with Presley’s search for a 'Song of the West' being comparable to Norris’ 'Epic of the Wheat'. Presley later discards his grand ideas and publishes 'The Toilers', a poem about the farmer’s plight which stirs up public interest in the issue. |
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| (The Octopus) Owner of El Rancho de los Muertos and the father of Harran and Lyman Derrick, Magnus represents the upstanding integrity of the previous generations, as opposed to the modern, increasingly dishonest dealings of the youth, as represented by the railroad and the rancher’s League, which Magnus leads. |
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| (The Octopus) Son of Magnus, Harran aids his father on the ranch. It is Harran who persuades Magnus to head the League. Along with his father he is part of the inner circle of the ranchers’ League. |
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| (The Octopus) Son of Magnus, Lyman is a lawyer in San Francisco up north. Lyman is contracted by the League to represent the farmers on the state Railroad Commission, which decides on transport rates. |
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| (The Octopus) Owner and operator of the Quien Sabe Rancho, Annixter is a young, headstrong confirmed bachelor who, over the course of the novel, matures into a soft-hearted, selfless man, largely due to his developing interest in Hilma Tree. Part of the inner circle of the League. |
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| (The Octopus) Long-time friend of Presley, Vanamee is a wanderer haunted by the tragic, violent death of a love interest, Angele Varian, years before. In the novel he works on different ranches and spends a great deal of time at the Mission San Juan de Guadalajara, where Angele had been murdered. The novel compares Vanamee to biblical prophets, as he has a strong spiritual aspect. |
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| (The Octopus) In addition to being a banker, real estate agent, and a political boss, S. Behrman is vilified by his representation of the railroad. As such, he is despised by the ranchers. |
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| (The Octopus) Derrick’s tennant, German with perpetual grievance |
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| (The Octopus) engineer for railroad where he has been a loyal employee, resigns after big pay cut |
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| (The Financier) = the financier himself, son of Henry Cowperwood, a bank clerk |
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| (The Financier) = district attorney at Cowperwood's trial |
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| (The Financier) = Cowperwood's older first wife |
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| (The Financier) = council president, duped by Cowperwood's cabal |
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| (The Financier) = the young daughter of an Irish industrialist, Edward Malai Butler, for whom Copwerwood divorces Lillian |
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| (The Financier) Cowperwood's lawyer |
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| (The Financier) = the treasurer-elect of Philadelphia, and intimate of Butler (see above), with whom Cowperwood intrigues to make money |
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| (The Financier) coal dealer also in on the efforts to control the destiny of Philadelphia |
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| (The Rise of David Levinsky) David grew up in Russia and emigrated to NYC where he made million in the garment business, studied Judaism despite his poverty, he slowly finds work in America as a peddler and eschews his Jewish heritage |
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| (The Rise of David Levinsky) friend of David and gave him money to travel to America. Later in life also came to NYC but with strong Communist values |
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| (The Rise of David Levinsky) English teacher for David and later works for his company managing the books |
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| (The Rise of David Levinsky) Friend of David from the ship to America. They meet again and he gets David a job sewing. |
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| (The Rise of David Levinsky) Friends of David from the sewing factory. David has an affair with Margolis while he lives with them. |
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| (Babbitt) Babbitt is a middle-aged successful real estate broker in Zenith. When the novel opens, he is a typical member of Zenith's hypocritical, ignorant, unthinking, conformist middle class. However, he is vaguely dissatisfied with the monotonous, conventional middle-class lifestyle. After his best friend, Paul Riesling, is sent to jail for shooting his wife in an argument, Babbitt briefly rebels against middle-class values. He has an affair, joins his mistress's Bohemian circle of friends, and voices liberal political opinions. However, his friends and associates quickly crush his rebellion by shunning him socially and refusing to do business with him. When Myra Babbitt falls seriously ill, Babbitt realizes that it is too late for him to rebel. He has too much to lose, and he doesn't want his family to suffer for his unorthodox behavior. He returns to his conventional life to regain his social status and respectability with a new understanding of the hypocritical, ignorant values of his class. |
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| (Babbitt) Myra Babbitt is George Babbitt's dull but devoted wife. She is also dissatisfied with the monotonous, conventional middle-class lifestyle. She is deeply hurt by Babbitt's affair, but when she falls seriously ill, Babbitt returns to his role as a responsible, family man. |
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| (Babbitt) Ted Babbitt is George and Myra's teenaged son. He doesn't want to go to college because his talents and interests lay in mechanics. Like most middle class boys, he is interested in girls, nice clothing, and expensive cars. At the end of the novel, he drops out of college and elopes with Eunice Littlefield. Because Babbitt now understands that the conventional middle-class lifestyle is extremely repressive, he tells his son to follow his dreams. |
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| (Babbitt) Tinka Babbitt is Myra and George's youngest child. |
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| (Babbitt) Verona Babbitt is Myra and George's oldest child. She graduated from Bryn Mawr and professes liberal opinions. She wants to have a socially responsible career, but her beliefs and character are still heavily influenced by the materialistic, ignorant values of the middle class. She marries Kenneth Escott, a young reporter for Zenith's local newspaper. |
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| (Babbitt) Thompson is Babbitt's father-in-law and business partner. Babbitt thinks he is "old-fashioned" and "provincial" because he didn't graduate from college. However, he is just as eager as Babbitt to take advantage of shady business opportunities in Zenith's real estate market. |
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| (Babbitt) Paul Riesling was Babbitt's college classmate and is his closest friend. When he was young, he wanted to become a professional violinist, but like Babbitt, he became mired in the conventional lifestyle of the middle-class businessman. He is harshly critical of the monotonous, hypocritical character of Zenith's middle class. His wife, Zilla, is equally dissatisfied with this life, but she vents her frustration on Riesling by constantly nagging him. One day, Riesling snaps and shoots her during an argument, for which he is sentenced to three years in prison. The loss of his friend devastates Babbitt, and it prompts him to embark on a rebellion against the middle-class lifestyle. |
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| (Babbitt) Zilla Riesling is Paul Riesling's wife. She is bored and embittered with their monotonous, conventional, middle-class lifestyle. She vents her frustration by constantly nagging her husband. During an argument, Riesling snaps and shoots her. After he is sent to prison for three years, Zilla "gets religion," but she uses it to morally justify her resentful desire to see Riesling suffer for shooting her. |
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| (Babbitt) "The Bunch" is Tanis's group of Bohemian friends. They include Minnie Sontag, Carrie Nork, and Fulton Bemis. After Babbitt spends some time with them, he realizes they have their own shallow, rigid standards of conformity. |
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| (Babbitt) Dr. Dilling is a conservative surgeon in Zenith. He helps the other members of the Good Citizen's League in the attempt to coerce Babbitt into conforming to Zenith's middle-class values. He treats Myra when she falls seriously ill. |
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| Reverend John Jennison Drew |
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| (Babbitt) Drew is the minister at Babbitt's church. He appoints Babbitt to the committee to increase Sunday School attendance. He mixes politics and religion because he preaches against the labor rights movement in Zenith. |
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| (Babbitt) Chum Frink is one of Babbitt's many friends and associates. He is considered a poetic genius, but he really writes clumsy, terrible jingles for advertisements. However, he is secretly unhappy that he never fulfilled his youthful ambitions to be a real poet. |
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| (Babbitt) The McKelveys are members of Zenith's elite upper class. Charles McKelvey was also one of Babbitt's college classmates, and Lucile McKelvey likes to rub elbows with British aristocrats like Sir Gerald Doak. The Babbitts try to become their friends, but the McKelveys treat them with snobbery and disdain. |
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| (Babbitt) Ed Overbrook was one of Babbitt's college classmates who failed to become a successful businessman. He and his wife want to become friends with the Babbitts in order to climb the social ladder. The Babbitts treat them with the same snobbery and disdain they receive from the more successful McKelveys. |
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| (The Driver) Narrator called “Coxey” who follows Coxey's Army back to Mr Valentine, a railroad executive. |
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| (The Driver) A railroad executive. |
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| (The Driver) He invests heavily in the great Midwestern railway company, becoming the primary stockholder, then the board chair, then the president itself. Then create a great fortune and builds an incredibly large company before investing in the Orient and Pacific Railroad and Security Life insurance Company. Because Galt does not care for government or public opinion, he is swept up in antitrust legislation, yet gives powerful testimony in front of a house committee where he compares himself to a farmer before dying of a stroke |
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| (The Driver) Model for Henry Galt and a 19th century railroad czar and turnaround specialist |
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| (An American Romance) Comes from Czech Republic to Minnesota to work with brother in iron ore mines. Then goes to Chicago where he simply starts working at a steel mill. Improves the steel production process by doubling the sheets that go through the line at once. buys a car and learns how it works. |
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| (An American Romance) Wife of Steve, the school teacher and they have a daughter Tina and 4 sons named after presidents |
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| (An American Romance) Cousin of Steve who was living in MN and working in the iron mines there. |
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| Gives valedictorian speech on |
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| (An American Romance) George Washington American pride. Son killed in WWI and in the same day Steve becomes a citizen. |
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| (An American Romance) Former lit teacher of George, with Steve improves the car and race it in Indianapolis. Together they further improve the car and take it to the NY auto show where investors from 5 million into the company. |
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| (An American Romance) Youngest son rallies workers to try to unionize, but Steve refuses such an attempt. Board overrides Steve and allows for a union to be organized. Teddy and Steve are reconciled as they come together to make warplanes |
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| (The Great Gatsby) The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) - Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) - Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) - Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire. |
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| (The Great Gatsby) a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom. |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Protagonist, son of dictator Stalenin who is ill and asks Peter to study Marxism politics. -Peter becomes 1-A after father has stroke. Ration coupons are allowed to be traded which results in and emerged market. When Stalenin is assassinated, Peter and Adams escape to America where they create Freeworld. Defeats Wonworld in war. |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Rival is the ambitious #2 Bolshekov |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Makes 5 year plans as the party in power |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Are the 1% top officials |
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| (Time Will Run Back) are 10% intellectuals and managers |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Are 20% are mostly criminals |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Are remaining so-called "rulers" |
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| (Time Will Run Back) Friend of Peter, American, and they discuss all things capitalist |
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| (Time Will Run Back) The librarian and father John are arrested by secret police |
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| (Point of No Return) Bostonian, conservative upper middle class banker in his 40s. returning from Ww2 where he was a colonel in the air force. transitions from family thoughts to work on his train ride there. Charles is not satisfied with his work, unlike the pres that calls it an art. Charles sees his life as predetermined, even when he gets the VP position. |
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| (Point of No Return) Wife, kids bill is 9 and Evelyn is 6. Family lives beyond their means. |
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| (Point of No Return) Charley's mentor, died in a plane crash and now his VP position is open |
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| (Point of No Return) Rival of Harvard |
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| (Point of No Return) bank prez appears to like Charles |
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| (Point of No Return) Anthropologist divided Clyde, MA into 9 sub classes ranked by street |
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| (Point of No Return) Charles’s father was nontraditional and gambled in the stock market |
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| (Point of No Return) Charles liked her, of old money |
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-new England salesman willy loman, early 60s and works for Wagner company
-nearly wrecked his car
-his sons biff and happy are both unhappy about their jobs
-biff learned from willy that being well liked is more important than intelligence
-Happy is a delusioned womanizer and discusses with Biff about getting a ranch out west
-wife linda is the realist and supports willy in his daydreams
-Ben struck it rich in Alaska by finding a diamond mine
-willy loses his job after requesting a position in NYC
-willy dies in a car crash believing it will give the family an insurance claim of 20k |
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-Moral story of a man’s rags to riches by developing mineral paint from his father’s old mineral deposit.
-Silias tries to enter high Boston society, but his simple upbringing offers barriers.
-Silias relies on hos own wife for moral decision-making, as well as the wife of Milton K. Rogers, his new partner.
-The partnership with Rogers does not succeed, so Silias buys him out of the endeavor. Afterward the business becomes even more successful; however both wives feel Silias had exploited Rogers.
-The Lapham family is interested in joining high society, especially after vacationing with the Coreys in Canada. One example of how they attempt to do this is by moving to the Back Bay area.
-Tom Corey request to work for Silas on foreign paint sales, to which Silas approves.
-Tom also professes love for Penelope (not Irene) which causes temporary drama before it is resolved and they are married.
-The “economy of pain” is explained by a priest, taking a utilitarian perspective on the relationship.
-Silas runs into financial difficulty based on competition with a West Virginia company. He nearly sells his home, which he later loses in a fire.
-Silas then is posed with moral questions surrounding selling land of low worth and arranging capital for a merger with the West Virginia paint company. |
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-Julian West falls into a state of suspended animation from 1887-2000, when he is woken up by Dr. Leete and exposed to a new utopian world.
-In this world, companies had merged into monopolies, which were then nationalized by the government that now runs central planning.
-West does not think human nature has changed; rather that humans benefit from having the right system that allow them to behave with cooperation.
-The new economy is established on the premise of equality, where motivation comes from national pride. There is no want or conflict for its people.
-Citizens are able to choose from diverse commodities that are purchased via cardboard credit cards.
-West dreams that he later returns to 1888 and argues with everyone about how good 2000 will be; however, he is relieved to discover it was only a dream
-The new setting offers a continuous stream of egalitarian social systems; however, these are repeatedly based by Dr. Younkins |
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-Frank Norris’s first of three books on wheat, beginning with seed and moving to transportation (The Pit) and consumption (The Wolf).
-Based on the historical struggle between ranchers and the railroad company that culminated with the 1880 Mussle-Slough Affair/Massacre.
-Follows the writer Presley as he stays on Los Muertos ranch with Magnus Derrick, aka the “Governor”.
-Presley is biking around the nearby ranches in search of a plot for his epic poem. Along the way he meets characters antagonistic to the Pacific and Southwest Railroad.
-Presley witnesses at the end of the final chapter a train (the octopus) riding through a flock of sheep that had wondered onto the tracks.
-S. Bherman is the villain of the story, reps the P&SW, and tells Magnus that his ploughs he purchased need to be shipped to the terminal stop and then back before being handed over.
-Annixter is starting a hops farm, is quoted by the railroad they can ship it at 2 cents per pound, fancies Hilma Tree and throws a party for completing his new barn.
-Presley gains national attention for his poem “The Toiler” and later writes “Song of the West”.
-Magnus Derrick is exposed by the Mercury, even though he bribed them not to, for being involved in bribing the politician. He ends up going half-crazy and working for the railroad.
-Presley after failing to kill S. Bherman, travels to San Fran to visit the surprisingly sympathetic railroad president, Shelgrim.
-Wheat, as is nature, is a symbol of God’s determinism by natural law. As Spinoza believes, humans behave within those determined systems. The purpose of state by Spinoza is the protection of freedom to our internal, shared nature.
-(Look up) Herbert Spencer believed in force and evolution as the primary views of worldly progress and human existence. Evil then is a minor occurrence in the direction of the greater good. |
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-Frank Cowperwood is amoral and rose the ranks at his bank
-beat a gang leader by punching his jow wth a steel ring, and by observing a lobster eat a squid
-businessman at a young ages as he bought and sold cases of soap, sold magazine subscriptions and rallied the purchasing power of his friends by having them buy straw hats at the same time
-he did not do things that did not benefit him
-introduced to the business world by his uncle Seneca Davis as frank wieighed sugar
-frank was a "tool" for Tighe and Company by working on the exchange,Mykonos which he wanted agency
-marries the older, rich widow Lillian Semple
-associated money with power with beauty
- Butler introduces Frank to the powerful people of the city, then marries his daughter.
-franks loses interest in Liklian ANC gains affection for the equally money-driven Aileen Butler, 10 years his junior
-makes his fortune with Stener and others by investing city funds and reaping profits
-loses money after 1871 Chicago fire and friends do not come to his aid
-spends 2 years in prison after he becomes scapegoat for entire crew
-regains fortune upon release after shorting on 1873 panic |
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| The rise of David Levinsky |
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-David grew up in Russia and emigrated to NYC where he made million in the garment business
-studied Judaism despite his poverty
-a year after his mothers death, he uses Matilda's money to travel to America
-he slowly finds work in America as a peddler and eschews his Jewish heritage
-David visits prstitutes and studies English at school with mr bender
-meets Gidelson again from the ship and he gets him a job sewing
-after being humiliated b his new boss as sewing, he decides to open his own shop
-lives with max and Dora margolis
-the shop profits by hiring Jewish immigrants and not paying union wages |
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-satire to middle class fictional city of zenith where people are materialistic conformists.
-story follows George Babbitt, who works real estate, and his wife Myra
-Babbits throw a dinner party, but the socially higher mckelveys leave early. The Babbits do the same when they attend the socially lower Overbrooks.
-Many aspects of society revolve around business, including poetry and religion
-George is deemed a great orator after giving a speech in which he argues those in his occupation should be called realtors
-Babbitt loses his friend Paul Riesling after Paul cheats on his wife, shooting her
-Babbitt has an affair with Tanis and joins "The Bunch", a bohemian, liberal group of friends
-his old friends coerce him back into conformity, with Babbitt both resents and accepts |
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-follows an unnamed reported of Coxey's Army who is reporting back to Mr Valentine, a railroad executive.
- Galt invests heavily in the great Midwestern railway company, becoming the primary stockholder, then the board chair, then the president itself.
-create a great fortune and builds an incredibly large company before investing in the Orient and Pacific Railroad and Security Life insurance Company
-Because Galt does not care for government or public opinion, he is swept up in antitrust legislation, yet gives powerful testimony in front of a house committee where he compares himself to a farmer before dying of a stroke
- modeled after Edward Harriman |
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-Comes from Czech Republic to Minnesota to work with brother in iron ore mines
-Then goes to Chicago where he simply starts working at a steel mill
-Marries the school teacher Anna and they have a daughter Tina and 4 sons named after presidents
-Improves the steel production process by doubling the sheets that go through the line at once
-Steve buys a car and learns how it works
-Son killed in WWI and in the same day Steve becomes a citizen
-With Howard, they improve the car and race it in Indianapolis
-Further improves the car and takes it to the NY auto show where investors from 5 million into the company
-Youngest son, Teddy, rallies workers to try to unionize, but Steve refuses such an attempt
-Board overrides Steve and allows for a union to be organized
-Teddy and Steve are reconciled as they come together to make warplanes |
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-Capitalism is the greatest invention of humankind
-Wonworld set in 2100 when communism rules the world
-protagonist is Peter Uldanov, son of dictator Stalenin who is ill and asks Peter to study Marxism politics
-rival is the ambitious #2 Bolshekov
-Politburo makes 5 year plans as the party in power
-Protectors are the 1% top officials
-Deputies are 10% intellectuals and managers
-Social unrelieved are 20% are mostly criminals
-Proletariat are remaining so-called "rulers"
-befriends Thomas Jefferson Adams of America and they discuss all things capitalist
-Peter enters party and is elected as #13
-Edith Maxwell the librarian and father John are arrested by secret police
-Peter becomes 1-A after father has stroke
-ration coupons are allowed to be traded which results in and emerged market
-when Stalenin is assassinated, Peter and Adams escape to America where they create Freeworld |
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Follows Bostonian Charles Grey, conservative upper middle class banker in his 40s
-wife Nancy, bill is 9 and Evelyn is 6
-lives beyond their means
-returning from Ww2 where he was a colonel in the air force
-Charley's mentor, Author Slade, died in a plane crash and now his VP position is open
-rival is Roger Blakesley of Harvard
-The bank prez Anthony Burton appears to like Charles
-transitions from family thoughts to work on his train ride there
-all desks are ranked at the bank
-Charles is not satisfied with his work, unlike the pres that calls it an art
-anthropologist Malcolm bryant divided Clyde, MA into 9 sub classes ranked by street
-his father John was nontraditional and gambled in the stock market
-Charles liked Jessica Lovell of old money
-Charles sees his life as predetermined, even when he gets the VP position |
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