The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe in 1959, it is part

of a short story collection of the same name.

 A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy's reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of
the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his
life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor's
prize runner.

- Written by Anonymous

 Nottinghamian Colin Smith is a sullen young man from a working class family. He, along with his friend
Mike, commit petty crimes, Colin in an effort to escape his unhappy family life. He has a difficult
relationship with his mother, especially in that she seemed more interested in the insurance money
from his father's death than with his father as a man and husband. That fact is further highlighted by
her taking up with another man immediately following Mr. Smith's death. Colin also distrusts authority.
He is sent to Ruxton Towers Reformatory after he is caught stealing money from a bakery. His stay
there is initially a difficult one until its Governor notices that Colin has a natural ability in long distance
running, which Colin states was all in an effort to run away from the police who were often chasing
him. The Governor believes running may be Colin's salvation to a better life, both at Ruxton Towers
and after his release. The Governor wants to cultivate Colin's running ability so that he will race for the
school in the inaugural track meet against a public school, winning which will show the world the
Governor being able to turn these boys into functioning members of society. Colin does take up the
challenge as running offers him a sense of freedom. Colin may use his running to demonstrate what he
considers his ultimate act of freedom.
Sula is a 1973 novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

Plot summary[edit] keep his end of the bargain= to do what it is agreed

The Bottom is a mostly black neighborhood in Ohio. A white farmer promised freedom and a piece of Bottom
land to his slave if he would perform some very difficult chores. When the slave completed the work, he asked
the farmer to keep his end of the bargain. Freedom was easy, the farmer had no objection to that, but he didn't
want to give up any land, so he told the slave that he was very sorry that he had to give him valley land. He had
hoped to give him a piece of the bottom land. The slave blinked and said he thought valley land was bottom
land. The master said, "Oh no! See those hills? That's bottom land; rich and fertile."
Shadrack, a resident of the Bottom, fought in World War I. He returns a shattered man, unable to accept the
complexities of the world. He lives on the outskirts of town, attempting to create order in his life. One of his
methods involves compartmentalizing his fear of death in a ritual he invents and names National Suicide Day.
The town is at first wary of him and his ritual, then, over time, unthinkingly accepts him.
Meanwhile, the families of the children Nel and Sula are contrasted. Nel is the product of a family that believes
deeply in social conventions; hers is a stable home, though some might characterize it as rigid. Nel is uncertain
of the conventional life her mother Helene wants for her; these doubts are hammered home when she meets
Rochelle, her grandmother who'd worked as a prostitute, the only unconventional woman in her family line.
Sula's family is very different: she lives with her grandmother Eva and her mother Hannah both of whom are
seen by the town as eccentric and loose. Their house also serves as a home for three informally adopted boys
and a steady stream of boarders.
Despite their differences, Sula and Nel become fiercely attached to each other during adolescence. However, a
traumatic accident changes everything. One day, Sula playfully swings a neighborhood boy, Chicken Little,
around by his hands. When she loses her grip, the boy falls into a nearby river and drowns. They never tell
anyone about the accident even though they did not intend to harm the boy. The two girls begin to grow apart.
One day, while Sula's mother Hannah was trying to light a fire outside, her dress catches fire. Eva, Hannah's
mother, sees this happening from the upstairs window and jumps out into the garden to try and save her
daughter's life. An ambulance comes, but Hannah dies en route to the hospital, and her mother is injured as
well. The incident solidifies Eva's concern for her granddaughter Sula, as afterwards she remembers seeing
Sula standing on the porch watching her mother burn. Other residents of the Bottom suggest perhaps Sula was
stunned by the incident, but Eva believes she stood and watch because she was "interested".
After high school, Nel chooses to marry and settles into the conventional role of wife and mother. Sula follows a
wildly divergent path and lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Shortly
after Nel's wedding, Sula leaves the Bottom for a period of 10 years. She has many affairs, some, it is rumored,
with white men. However, she finds people following the same boring routines elsewhere, so she returns to the
Bottom and to Nel.
Upon her return, the town regards Sula as the very personification of evil for her blatant disregard of social
conventions. Their hatred in part rests upon Sula's interracial relationships, but is crystallized when Sula has an
affair with Nel's husband, Jude, who subsequently abandons Nel. Ironically, the community's labeling of Sula as
evil actually improves their own lives. Her presence in the community gives them the impetus to live
harmoniously with one another. Nel breaks off her friendship with Sula. Just before Sula dies in 1940, they
achieve a half-hearted reconciliation. With Sula's death, the harmony that had reigned in the town quickly
dissolves.

Characters[edit]

 Sula Peace: the main antagonist, whose return to the Bottom disrupts the whole community. The main
reason for Sula's strangeness is her defiance of gender norms and traditional morality, symbolized by the
birthmark "that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed
rose,"[2] which, according to some psychoanalytic readings, is a dual symbol with both phallic and vaginal
resonance.[3]
 Eva Peace: Sula's grandmother, who is missing one leg. Though the circumstances are never fully
explained, it is suggested that she purposely put it under a train in order to collect insurance money to
support her three young children.
 BoyBoy: Sula's grandfather, who leaves Eva for another woman.
 Hannah Peace: Sula's mother; Eva's eldest daughter. Hannah is a promiscuous and care-free woman who
burned to death early on. Her daughter Sula witnessed the fire but did nothing.
 Eva (Pearl) Peace: Sula's aunt; Eva Sr.'s youngest daughter and middle child.
 Ralph (Plum) Peace: Sula's uncle; Eva's son and youngest child. Plum was a WWI veteran and
a heroin addict. Eva burns him alive with kerosene because of his mental instability.
 Helene Wright: Nel's strait-laced and clean mother. Though the daughter of a prostitute, she was raised by
her devoutly religious grandmother, Cecile.
 Nel Wright: Sula's best friend (can also be considered a main protagonist) who doesn't want to be like her
mother because she will never be reduced to "custard" and she will not be humiliated by other people as her
mother is.
 Shadrack: A paranoid shell-shocked WWI veteran, who returns to Sula and Nel's hometown, Medallion. He
invents National Suicide Day.
 Jude Greene: Nel's husband, who leaves Nel due to a love affair with Sula.
 Ajax (Albert Jacks): Sula's confidant and lover.
 Tar Baby (Pretty Johnnie): A quiet, cowardly, and reserved partially or possibly fully white man who rents
out one of the rooms in the Peace household. It is believed that Tar Baby has come up to the bottom to drink
himself to death.
 The Deweys: three boys, each about one year apart from one another in age, who were each nicknamed
"Dewey" by Eva. Their real names are never written in the novel, and after the introduction of these
characters, the three were referred as one being, thus Morrison's use of a lowercase "d" in "dewey" for the
rest of the novel.
 Chicken Little: The little boy whom Sula accidentally drowns by throwing into the river.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. The main character, Holly Golightly, is
one of Capote's best-known creations.

Plot[edit]
In autumn 1943, the unnamed narrator becomes friends with Holly Golightly. The two are tenants in
a brownstone apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Holly (age 18–19) is a country girl turned New
York café society girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs
and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to
Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute but an "American geisha."[1]
Holly likes to shock people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on
various topics. Over the course of a year, she slowly reveals herself to the narrator, who finds himself fascinated
by her curious lifestyle.

Characters[edit]

 "Fred": the narrator.

 Holly Golightly: The protagonist.
 Joe Bell: A bartender acquainted with both "Fred" and Holly.
 Mag Wildwood: Holly's friend and sometime roommate, a fellow socialite and model.
 Rusty Trawler: A presumably wealthy man, thrice divorced, well known in society circles.
 José Ybarra-Jaegar: A Brazilian diplomat, who is the companion of Mag Wildwood and, later, of Holly.
 Doc Golightly: A veterinarian from Texas, whom Holly married as a teenager.
 O. J. Berman: A Hollywood agent, who has discovered Holly and groomed her to become a professional
actress.
 Salvatore "Sally" Tomato: A convicted racketeer, whom Holly visits weekly in Sing Sing prison.
 Madame Sapphia Spanella: Another tenant in the brownstone.
 Mr. I. Y. Yunioshi: A photographer, who lives in an apartment on the top floor of the brownstone where Holly
lives
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in
a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter
ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions
and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile
from Ireland to Europe. The work uses techniques that Joyce developed more fully in Ulysses (1922)
and Finnegans Wake (1939).
A Portrait began life in 1903 as Stephen Hero—a projected 63-chapter autobiographical novel in a realistic style.
After 25 chapters, Joyce abandoned Stephen Hero in 1907 and set to reworking its themes and protagonist into
a condensed five-chapter novel, dispensing with strict realism and making extensive use of free indirect
speech that allows the reader to peer into Stephen's developing consciousness. American modernist poet Ezra
Pound had the novel serialised in the English literary magazine The Egoist in 1914 and 1915, and published as
a book in 1916 by B. W. Huebsch of New York. The publication of A Portrait and the short story
collection Dubliners (1914) earned Joyce a place at the forefront of literary modernism.

Background[edit]
James Joyce in 1915

Born into a middle-class family in Dublin, Ireland, James Joyce (1882–1941) excelled as a student, graduating
from University College, Dublin, in 1902. He moved to Paris to study medicine, but soon gave it up. He returned
to Ireland at his family's request as his mother was dying of cancer. Despite her pleas, the impious Joyce and his
brother Stanislaus refused to make confession or take communion, and when she passed into a coma they
refused to kneel and pray for her.[2] After a stretch of failed attempts to get published and launch his own
newspaper, Joyce then took jobs teaching, singing and reviewing books, while drinking heavily.[2]
Joyce made his first attempt at a novel, Stephen Hero, in early 1904.
Stephen Hero is written from the point of view of an omniscient third-person narrator, but in Portrait Joyce adopts
the free indirect style, a change that reflects the moving of the narrative centre of consciousness firmly and
uniquely onto Stephen. Persons and events take their significance from Stephen, and are perceived from his
point of view.[12] Characters and places are no longer mentioned simply because the young Joyce had known
them. Salient details are carefully chosen and fitted into the aesthetic pattern of the novel.[12]
Stephen Dedalus – The main character of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Growing up, Stephen goes
through long phases of hedonism and deep religiosity. He eventually adopts a philosophy of aestheticism,
greatly valuing beauty and art. Stephen is essentially Joyce's alter ego, and many of the events of Stephen's life
mirror events from Joyce's own youth.[15] His surname is taken from the ancient Greek mythical figure Daedalus,
who also engaged in a struggle for autonomy.
Simon Dedalus – Stephen's father, an impoverished former medical student with a strong sense of Irish
nationalism. Sentimental about his past, Simon Dedalus frequently reminisces about his youth.[15] Loosely based
on Joyce's own father and their relationship.
Mary Dedalus - Stephen's mother who is very religious and often argues with Stephen about attending
services.[15]
Emma Clery – Stephen's beloved, the young girl to whom he is fiercely attracted over the course of many years.
Stephen constructs Emma as an ideal of femininity, even though (or because) he does not know her well.[15]
Charles Stewart Parnell – An Irish political leader who is not an actual character in the novel, but whose death
influences many of its characters. Parnell had powerfully led the Irish Parliamentary Party until he was driven out
of public life after his affair with a married woman was exposed.
Cranly – Stephen's best friend at university, in whom he confides some of his thoughts and feelings. In this
sense Cranly represents a secular confessor for Stephen. Eventually Cranly begins to encourage Stephen to
conform to the wishes of his family and to try harder to fit in with his peers, advice that Stephen fiercely resents.
Towards the conclusion of the novel he bears witness to Stephen's exposition of his aesthetic philosophy. It is
partly due to Cranly that Stephen decides to leave, after witnessing Cranly's budding (and reciprocated) romantic
interest in Emma.[15]
Dante (Mrs. Riordan) - The governess of the Dedalus children. She is very intense and a dedicated Catholic.[15]
Lynch - Stephen's friend from university who has a rather dry personality.[15]
Synopsis[edit]
The childhood of Stephen Dedalus is recounted using vocabulary that changes as he grows, in a voice not his
own but sensitive to his feelings. The reader experiences Stephen's fears and bewilderment as he comes to
terms with the world[16] in a series of disjointed episodes.[17] Stephen attends the Jesuit-run Clongowes Wood
College, where the apprehensive, intellectually gifted boy suffers the ridicule of his classmates while he learns
the schoolboy codes of behaviour. While he cannot grasp their significance, at a Christmas dinner he is witness
to the social, political and religious tensions in Ireland involving Charles Stewart Parnell, which drive wedges
between members of his family, leaving Stephen with doubts over which social institutions he can place his faith
in.[18] Back at Clongowes, word spreads that a number of older boys have been caught "smugging"; discipline is
tightened, and the Jesuits increase use of corporal punishment. Stephen is strapped when one of his instructors
believes he has broken his glasses to avoid studying, but, prodded by his classmates, Stephen works up the
courage to complain to the rector, Father Conmee, who assures him there will be no such recurrence, leaving
Stephen with a sense of triumph.[19]
Stephen's father gets into debt and the family leaves its pleasant suburban home to live in Dublin. Stephen
realises that he will not return to Clongowes. However, thanks to a scholarship obtained for him by Father
Conmee, Stephen is able to attend Belvedere College, where he excels academically and becomes a class
leader.[20] Stephen squanders a large cash prize from school, and begins to see prostitutes, as distance grows
between him and his drunken father.[21]

Stephen Dedalus has an aesthetic epiphany along Dollymount Strand.

As Stephen abandons himself to sensual pleasures, his class is taken on a religious retreat, where the boys sit
through sermons.[22] Stephen pays special attention to those on pride, guilt, punishment and the Four Last
Things (death, judgement, Hell, and Heaven). He feels that the words of the sermon, describing horrific eternal
punishment in hell, are directed at himself and, overwhelmed, comes to desire forgiveness. Overjoyed at his
return to the Church, he devotes himself to acts of ascetic repentance, though they soon devolve to mere acts of
routine, as his thoughts turn elsewhere. His devotion comes to the attention of the Jesuits, and they encourage
him to consider entering the priesthood.[23] Stephen takes time to consider, but has a crisis of faith because of the
conflict between his spiritual beliefs and his aesthetic ambitions. Along Dollymount Strand he spots a girl wading,
and has an epiphany in which he is overcome with the desire to find a way to express her beauty in his writing.[24]
As a student at University College, Dublin, Stephen grows increasingly wary of the institutions around him:
Church, school, politics and family. In the midst of the disintegration of his family's fortunes his father berates
him and his mother urges him to return to the Church.[25] An increasingly dry, humourless Stephen explains his
alienation from the Church and the aesthetic theory he has developed to his friends, who find that they cannot
accept either of them.[26] Stephen concludes that Ireland is too restricted to allow him to express himself fully as
an artist, so he decides that he will have to leave. He sets his mind on self-imposed exile, but not without
declaring in his diary his ties to his homeland:[27]
... I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the
uncreated conscience of my race.

Style[edit]

The novel mixes third-person narrative with free indirect speech, which allows both identification with and
distance from Stephen. The narrator refrains from judgement. The omniscient narrator of the earlier Stephen
Hero informs the reader as Stephen sets out to write "some pages of sorry verse," while Portrait gives only
Stephen's attempts, leaving the evaluation to the reader.[28]
The novel is written primarily as a third-person narrative with minimal dialogue until the final chapter. This
chapter includes dialogue-intensive scenes alternately involving Stephen, Davin and Cranly. An example of such
a scene is the one in which Stephen posits his complex Thomist aesthetic theory in an extended dialogue. Joyce
employs first-person narration for Stephen's diary entries in the concluding pages of the novel, perhaps to
suggest that Stephen has finally found his own voice and no longer needs to absorb the stories of
others.[29] Joyce fully employs the free indirect style to demonstrate Stephen's intellectual development from his
childhood, through his education, to his increasing independence and ultimate exile from Ireland as a young
man. The style of the work progresses through each of its five chapters, as the complexity of language and
Stephen's ability to comprehend the world around him both gradually increase.[30] The book's opening pages
communicate Stephen's first stirrings of consciousness when he is a child. Throughout the work language is
used to describe indirectly the state of mind of the protagonist and the subjective effect of the events of his life.[31]
The writing style is notable also for Joyce's omission of quotation marks: he indicates dialogue by beginning a
paragraph with a dash, as is commonly used in French, Spanish or Russian publications.
The novel, like all of Joyce's published works, is not dedicated to anyone.
According to the literary scholar Hugh Kenner, "every theme in the entire life-work of James Joyce is stated on
the first two pages of the Portrait".[32] The highly condensed recounting of young Stephen's growing
consciousness "enact[s] the entire action [of the novel] in microcosm. An Aristotelian catalogue of senses,
faculties, and mental activities is counterpointed against the unfolding of the infant conscience",[33] and themes
that run through Joyce's later novels find expression there.[34]
Autobiography[edit]
Stephen Hero is a directly autobiographical novel, including people and events because Joyce had personally
experienced them. In contrast, in A Portrait Joyce refines his approach by selectively drawing on life events and
reflecting them through the consciousness of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional character.[30]
Women in Love
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier
novel The Rainbow (1915), and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and
Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an industrialist.
Lawrence contrasts this pair with the love that develops between Ursula Brangwen and Rupert Birkin, an
alienated intellectual who articulates many opinions associated with the author. The emotional relationships thus
established are given further depth and tension by an intense psychological and physical attraction between
Gerald and Rupert. The novel ranges over the whole of British society before the time of the First World War and
eventually concludes in the snows of the Tyrolean Alps. Ursula's character draws on Lawrence's wife Frieda and
Gudrun's on Katherine Mansfield, while Rupert Birkin's has elements of Lawrence and Gerald Crich's of
Mansfield's husband, John Middleton Murry.[1]

Plot summary
Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher,
Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald
Crich, and the four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun and Gerald eventually
begin a love affair.
All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women.
At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's
youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald
goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room.
Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy.
The two couples holiday in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but
emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal
abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by his own internal violence, tries to strangle Gudrun. Before he
has killed her, however, he realises that this is not what he wants, and he leaves Gudrun and Loerke, and climbs
the mountain, eventually slips into a snowy valley where he falls asleep, and freezes to death.
The impact of Gerald's death upon Birkin is profound. The novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death with
Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her; her for the perfect relationship with a
woman, and Gerald for the perfect relationship with a man.

Reception[edit]
As with most of Lawrence's works, Women in Love's sexual subject matter caused controversy.

Adaptations -Film adaptation[edit]

Brave New World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Brave New World (disambiguation).

Brave New World is a novel written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley, and published in 1932. Set in London in the year
AD 2540 (632 A.F.—"After Ford"—in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive
technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that combine profoundly to
change society. Huxley answered this book with a reassessment in an essay, Brave New World
Revisited (1958), and with Island (1962), his final novel.

Title[edit]
Brave New World's title derives from Miranda's speech in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:[5]
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

— William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206[6]

Huxley said that Brave New World was inspired by the utopian novels of H. G. Wells, including A Modern
Utopia (1905) and Men Like Gods (1923).[9] Wells' hopeful vision of the future's possibilities gave Huxley the idea
to begin writing a parody of the novel, which became Brave New World.
Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely held opinions, particularly
the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States
gave Brave New World much of its character. Not only was Huxley outraged by the culture of youth, commercial
cheeriness and sexual promiscuity, and the inward-looking nature of many Americans,[16] he had also found the
book My Life and Work by Henry Ford on the boat to America, and he saw the book's principles applied in
everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.[17]

Plot[edit]
The novel opens in London in AF 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar). The society is illuminated by the
activities of the novel's central characters, Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx, and others. Lenina, a hatchery
worker, is socially accepted and contented, but Bernard, a psychologist in the Directorate of Hatcheries and
Conditioning, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average of his Alpha caste—a quality shared by the lower
castes, which gives him an inferiority complex. His intelligence and his work with hypnopaedia allow him to
understand, and disapprove of, the methods by which society is sustained. Courting disaster, he is vocal and
arrogant about his differences. Bernard is mocked by other Alphas because of his stature, as well as for his
individualistic tendencies, and is threatened with exile to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is
Helmholtz Watson, a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering. The friendship is based on their feelings
of being misfits (in the context of the World State), but unlike Bernard, Watson's sense of alienation stems from
being exceptionally gifted, intelligent, handsome, and physically strong. Helmholtz is drawn to Bernard as a
confidant.
Bernard takes a holiday with Lenina at a Savage Reservation in New Mexico. (The culture of the village folk
resembles the contemporary Native American groups of the region, descendants of the Anasazi, including
the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna and Zuni.) There they observe ceremonies, including a ritual in which a
village boy is whipped into unconsciousness. They encounter Linda, a woman originally from the World State
who is living on the reservation with her son John, now a young man. She too visited the reservation on a
holiday, and became separated from her group and was left behind. She had meanwhile become pregnant by a
fellow-holidaymaker (who is revealed to be Bernard's boss, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). She did
not try to return to "civilization" because of her shame at her pregnancy. Neither Linda nor John are accepted by
the villagers, and their life has been hard and unpleasant. Linda has taught John to read, although from only two
books: a scientific manual from his mother's job in the hatchery and the collected works of Shakespeare.
Ostracised by the villagers, John is able to articulate his feelings only in terms of Shakespearean drama,
especially the tragedies of Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. Linda now wants to return to London, while
John wants to see the "brave new world" his mother has told him about. Bernard sees an opportunity to thwart
plans to exile him, and gets permission to take Linda and John back. On his return to London, Bernard is
confronted by the Director, but turns the tables by presenting him with his long-lost lover and unknown son. John
calls the Director his "father", a vulgarity which causes a roar of laughter. The humiliated Director resigns in
shame.
Bernard, as "custodian" of the "savage" John who is now treated as a celebrity, is fawned on by the highest
members of society and revels in attention he once scorned. However, his triumph is short-lived. Decrepit and
friendless, Linda goes on a permanent soma, that is, drugged, holiday while John refuses to attend social events
organised by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Society drops Bernard as swiftly
as it had taken him. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and
romance, based on Shakespeare, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude to sex. Lenina tries
to seduce John, but he attacks her for being an "impudent strumpet". John is then informed that his mother is
extremely ill. He rushes to her bedside, causing a scandal as this is not the "correct" attitude to death. Some
Delta children who enter the ward for "death-conditioning" irritate John to the point where he attacks one
physically. He then tries to break up a distribution of soma to a lower-caste group and is set upon by the
outraged recipients. Helmholtz, who has been called by Bernard, also becomes involved in the fracas.
Bernard, Helmholtz and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the Resident "World Controller for Western
Europe". Bernard and Helmholtz are told they are to be exiled to islands, seen by society at large as a
punishment for antisocial activity. Bernard pleads grovelling for a second chance, but Helmholtz welcomes the
opportunity to be an individual, and chooses the Falkland Islands as his destination, believing that their bad
weather will inspire his writing. Mond says that Bernard does not know that exile is actually a reward. The
islands are full of the most interesting people in the world, individuals who did not fit in the World State
community. Mond outlines for John the events that led to the present society and his arguments for a caste
system and social control. John rejects Mond's arguments, and Mond sums up by saying that John demands
"the right to be unhappy". John asks if he may go to the islands as well but Mond refuses, saying he wishes to
"continue the experiment".
John moves to an abandoned hilltop "air-lighthouse" (meant to warn and guide helicopters) there, near the
village of Puttenham, where he intends to adopt an ascetic lifestyle in order to purify himself of civilization and
make amends for his mistreatment of his mother. He practises self-mortification, and his self-flagellation is
witnessed by bystanders, turning him into a sensational spectacle. Hundreds of sightseers, hoping to witness his
behaviour, arrive at John's lighthouse; one of them is Lenina. At the sight of the woman he both adores and
loathes, John attacks her with his whip. The onlookers are whipped into a frenzy by the display and John is
caught up in a soma-fueled orgy. The next morning, John remembers the previous night's events and is stricken
with remorse. Onlookers and journalists who arrive that evening find that he has hanged himself, his body
twisting aimlessly in the lighthouse.

Characters[edit]
John – the illicit son of the Director and Linda, born and reared on the Savage Reservation ("Malpais") after
Linda was unwittingly left behind by her errant lover. John ("the Savage", as he is often called) is an outsider
both on the Reservation—where the natives still practice marriage, natural birth, family life and religion—and the
ostensibly civilised World State, based on principles of stability and shallow happiness. He has read nothing but
the complete works of William Shakespeare, which he quotes extensively, and, for the most part, aptly, though
his allusion to the "Brave New World" (Miranda's words in The Tempest) takes on a darker and bitterly ironic
resonance as the novel unfolds. John is intensely moral according to a code that he has been taught by
Shakespeare and life in Malpais but is also naïve: his views are as imported into his own consciousness as are
the hypnopedic messages of World State citizens. The admonishments of the men of Malpais taught him to
regard his mother as a whore; but he cannot grasp that these were the same men who continually sought her
out despite their supposedly sacred pledges of monogamy. Because he is unwanted in Malpais, he accepts the
invitation to travel back to London and is initially astonished by the comforts of the World State. However, he
remains committed to values that exist only in his poetry. He first spurns Lenina for failing to live up to his
Shakespearean ideal and then the entire utopian society: he asserts that its technological wonders and
consumerism are poor substitutes for individual freedom, human dignity and personal integrity. After his mother's
death, he becomes deeply distressed with grief, surprising onlookers in the hospital. He then ostracizes himself
from society and attempts to purify himself of "sin" (desire), but is finally unable to do so and hangs himself in
despair.
Bernard Marx – an Alpha-Plus sleep-learning specialist at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning
Centre. Bernard is a misfit. He is unusually short for an Alpha; an alleged accident with alcohol in Bernard's
blood-surrogate before his decanting has left him slightly stunted. Bernard's independence of mind stems more
from his inferiority complex and depressive nature than from any depth of philosophical conviction. Unlike his
fellow utopians, Bernard is often angry, resentful, and jealous. At times, he is also cowardly and hypocritical. His
conditioning is clearly incomplete. He doesn't enjoy communal sports, solidarity services, or promiscuous sex.
He doesn't even get much joy out of soma. Bernard is in love with Lenina but he doesn't like her sleeping with
other men, even though "everyone belongs to everyone else". Bernard's triumphant return to utopian civilisation
with John the Savage from the Reservation precipitates the downfall of the Director, who had been planning to
exile him. Bernard's triumph is short-lived. Success goes to his head. Despite his tearful pleas, he is ultimately
banished to an island for his non-conformist behaviour.
Helmholtz Watson – a handsome and successful Alpha-Plus lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering
and a friend of Bernard. He feels unfulfilled writing endless propaganda doggerel, and the stifling conformism
and philistinism of the World State make him restive. Helmholtz is ultimately exiled to the Falkland Islands—a
cold asylum for disaffected Alpha-Plus non-conformists—after reading a heretical poem to his students on the
virtues of solitude and helping John destroy some Deltas' rations of soma following Linda's death. Unlike
Bernard, he takes his exile in his stride and comes to view it as an opportunity for inspiration in his writing.
Lenina Crowne – a young, beautiful fetus technician at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre.
She is part of the 30% of the female population that are not freemartins (Sterile women). Lenina is promiscuous
and popular but somewhat quirky in their society: she had a four-month relation with Henry Foster, choosing not
to have sex with anyone but him for a period of time. She is basically happy and well-conditioned but will
use soma to suppress unwelcome emotions, as is expected. Lenina has a date with Bernard, to whom she feels
ambivalently attracted, and she goes to the Reservation with him. On returning to civilisation, she tries and fails
to seduce John the Savage. John loves and desires Lenina but he is repelled by her forwardness and the
prospect of pre-marital sex, rejecting her as an "impudent strumpet". Lenina visits John at the lighthouse but he
attacks her with a whip, unwittingly inciting onlookers to do the same. Her exact fate is left unspecified.
Mustapha Mond – Resident World Controller of Western Europe, "His Fordship" Mustapha Mond presides over
one of the ten zones of the World State, the global government set up after the cataclysmic Nine Years' War and
great Economic Collapse. Sophisticated and good-natured, Mond is an urbane and hyperintelligent advocate of
the World State and its ethos of "Community, Identity, Stability". He is uniquely aware among the characters of
the novel of the precise nature of the society he oversees and what it has given up to accomplish its gains. Mond
argues that art, literature, and scientific freedom must be sacrificed to secure the ultimate utilitarian goal of
maximising societal happiness. He defends the genetic caste system, behavioural conditioning, and the lack of
personal freedom in the World State: these, he says, are a price worth paying for achieving social stability, the
highest social virtue because it leads to lasting happiness.
Fanny Crowne – Lenina Crowne's friend (they have the same last name because only ten thousand last names
are in use in the World State). Fanny voices the conventional values of her caste and society, particularly the
importance of promiscuity: she advises Lenina that she should have more than one man in her life because it it
is unseemly to concentrate on just one. Fanny then, however, warns Lenina away from a new lover whom she
considers undeserving, yet she is ultimately supportive of the young woman's attraction to the savage John.
Henry Foster – One of Lenina's many lovers, he is a perfectly conventional Alpha male, casually discussing
Lenina's body with his coworkers. His success with Lenina, and his casual attitude about it, infuriate the jealous
Bernard. Henry ultimately proves himself every bit the ideal World State citizen, finding no courage to defend
Lenina from John's assaults despite having maintained an uncommonly longstanding sexual relationship with
her.
The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (DHC), also known as Thomas "Tomakin" – He is the
administrator of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, where he is a threatening figure who
intends to exile Bernard to Iceland. His plans take an unexpected turn, however, when Bernard returns from the
Reservation with Linda (see below) and John, a child they both realize is actually his. This fact, scandalous and
obscene in the World State not because it was extramarital (which all sexual acts are) but because it was
procreative, leads the Director to resign his post in shame.
Linda – John's mother, decanted as a Beta-Minus in the World State and subsequently lost during a storm while
visiting the New Mexico Savage Reservation with the Director many years before the events of the novel.
Despite following her usual precautions, Linda became pregnant with the Director's son during their time
together and was therefore unable to return to the World State by the time that she found her way to Malpais.
Having been conditioned to the promiscuous social norms of the World State, Linda finds herself at once popular
with every man in the pueblo (because she is open to all sexual advances) and also reviled for the same reason,
seen as a whore by the wives of the men who visit her and by the men themselves (who come to her
nonetheless). Linda is desperate to return to the World State and to soma, wanting nothing more from her
remaining life than comfort until death.
The Arch-Community-Songster – The secular equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the World State
society.
The Warden – An Alpha-Minus, the talkative chief administrator for the New Mexico Savage Reservation. He is
blond, short, broad-shouldered, and has a booming voice.[18]
Darwin Bonaparte – a "big game photographer" (i.e. filmmaker) who films John flogging himself. Darwin
Bonaparte is known for two other works: "feely of the gorillas' wedding",[19] and "Sperm Whale's Love-life".[19] He
has already made a name for himself[20] but still seeks more. He renews his fame by filming the savage, John, in
his newest release "The Savage of Surrey".[21] His name alludes to Charles Darwin and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Others[edit]

 Freemartins: These women have been deliberately made sterile by exposure to hormones during fetal
development. In the book, government policy requires freemartins to form 70% of the female population.
Of Malpais[edit]

 Popé, a native of Malpais. Although he reinforces the behaviour that causes hatred for Linda in Malpais by
sleeping with her and bringing her mescal, he still holds the traditional beliefs of his tribe. In his early years
John also attempts to kill him. He gave Linda a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.
 Mitsima, an elder tribal shaman who also teaches John survival skills such as rudimentary ceramics
(specifically coil pots, which were traditional to Native American tribes) and bow-making.
The Grapes of Wrath
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Grapes of Wrath (disambiguation).

The Grapes of Wrath

First edition cover

Author John Steinbeck

Cover artist Elmer Hader

Country United States

Language English

Genre Novel

Publisher The Viking Press-James Lloyd

Publication date April 14, 1939[1]

Pages 464

OCLC 289946

Dewey Decimal 813.52

 The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939.[2] The book
won the National Book Award[3] and Pulitzer Prize[4] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was
awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.[5]
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from
their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures
forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped
in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land,
dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its
historical context and enduring legacy.[6][7] A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and
directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.

Contents
[hide]

 1Plot
 2Characters
 3Development
o 3.1Title
 4Author's note
 5Critical reception
 6Adaptations
o 6.1In film
o 6.2In music
o 6.3In theatre
 7See also
 8References
o 8.1Notes
o 8.2Bibliography
 9External links

Plot[edit]
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison, where he had been imprisoned after
being convicted of homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher
Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at Tom's
childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor,
Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them
that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area.
The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle John's. Tom finds his family loading their remaining possessions
into a Hudson Motor Car Company saloon converted to a truck; with their crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the
family has defaulted on their bank loans, and their farm has been repossessed. Consequently, the Joads have
no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay.
The Joads put everything they have into making the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would violate his
parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family.
Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants. In makeshift camps, they
hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and the group worries about lessening prospects.
The family unit dwindles, too: Granpa dies along the road, and they bury him in a field; Granma dies close to the
California state line; and both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie Rivers (the husband of the pregnant Joad
daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family. Led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only
continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma.
Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low, and workers are exploited to
the point of starvation. The big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing
prices. Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration,
a New Deal agency, offers better conditions, but does not have enough resources to care for all the needy
families. Nonetheless, as a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California
deputies.
 How can you frighten a man whose hunger is

“ not only in his own cramped stomach but in the

wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare
”
him – he has known a fear beyond every other.

— Chapter 19

In response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The
remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in a peach orchard, where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually
turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casy's fatal beating, he kills the attacker and flees as a fugitive. The
Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of being arrested for the homicide.
Tom bids his mother farewell and promises to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn. Ma
Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads' dwelling is flooded,
and they move to higher ground. In the final chapter of the book, the family takes shelter from the flood in an old
barn. Inside, they find a young boy and his father, who is dying of starvation. Rose of Sharon takes pity on the
man and offers him her breast, to save him from starvation.

Characters[edit]
 Tom Joad: Protagonist of the story; the Joad family's second son, named after his father. Later on, Tom
takes leadership of the family even though he is young.
 Ma Joad: Matriarch. Practical and warm-spirited, she tries to hold the family together. Her given name is
never learned; it is suggested that her maiden name was Hazlett.
 Pa Joad: Patriarch, also named Tom, age 50. Hardworking sharecropper and family man. Pa becomes a
broken man upon losing his livelihood and means of supporting his family, forcing Ma to assume leadership.
 Uncle John Joad: Pa Joad's older brother (Tom describes him as "a fella about 60", but in narrative he is
described as 50). He felt guilty about the death of his young wife years before, and has been prone to
binges involving alcohol and prostitutes, but is generous with his goods.
 Jim Casy: A former preacher who lost his faith. He is a Christ-like figure and is based on Ed Ricketts.
 Al Joad: The second youngest son, a "smart-aleck sixteen-year-older" who cares mainly for cars and girls;
he looks up to Tom, but begins to find his own way.
 Rose of Sharon Joad Rivers: Childish and dreamy teenage daughter (18) who develops into a mature
woman. She symbolizes regrowth when she helps the starving stranger (see also Roman Charity, works of
art based on the legend of a daughter as wet nurse to her dying father). Pregnant in the beginning of the
novel, she delivers a stillborn baby, perhaps due to malnutrition.
 Connie Rivers: Rose of Sharon's husband. Nineteen years old and naïve, he is overwhelmed by marriage
and impending fatherhood; he abandons his wife shortly after they arrive in California.
 Noah Joad: The oldest son, he is the first to leave the family, planning to live off fishing on the Colorado
River. Injured at birth and described as "strange", he may have slight learning difficulties.
 Grampa Joad: Tom's grandfather, who expresses his strong desire to stay in Oklahoma. His full name is
given as William James Joad. Grampa is drugged by his family with "soothin' syrup" to force him to leave,
but he dies the first evening on the road. Casy attributes his death to a stroke but says that Grampa is "jus'
stayin' with the lan'. He couldn' leave it."
 Granma Joad: Grampa Joad's religious wife; she loses her will to live after his death. She dies while the
family is crossing the Mojave Desert.
 Ruthie Joad: The youngest daughter, age twelve. She is shown to be reckless and childish. Quarreling with
another child, she reveals Tom in hiding.
 Winfield Joad: The youngest male in the family, age ten, "kid-wild and calfish".
 Jim Rawley: Manages the camp at Weedpatch, he shows the Joads surprising favor.
 Muley Graves: A neighbor of the Joads'; he is invited to come along to California with them but refuses. The
family leave two of their dogs with him; a third they take but it is killed by a car during their travels.
 Ivy and Sairy Wilson: Migrants from Kansas, they attend the death of Grampa and share the journey as far
as the California state line.
 Mr. Wainwright: The father of Aggie Wainwright and husband of Mrs. Wainwright. Worries over his daughter
Aggie.
 Mrs. Wainwright: Mother to Aggie Wainwright and wife to Mr. Wainwright. She helps Ma deliver Rose of
Sharon's baby.
 Aggie Wainwright: Sixteen-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright. Intends to marry Al.
 Floyd Knowles: The man at the Hooverville who urges Tom and Casy to join labor organizations. His
agitation results in Casy's being jailed.
 The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway
 Analysis of Major Characters
 Santiago
 Manolin

Plot Overview

The Old Man and the Sea is the story of an epic struggle between an old, seasoned
fisherman and the greatest catch of his life. For eighty-four days, Santiago, an aged
Cuban fisherman, has set out to sea and returned empty-handed. So conspicuously
unlucky is he that the parents of his young, devoted apprentice and friend, Manolin,
have forced the boy to leave the old man in order to fish in a more prosperous boat.
Nevertheless, the boy continues to care for the old man upon his return each night. He
helps the old man tote his gear to his ramshackle hut, secures food for him, and
discusses the latest developments in American baseball, especially the trials of the old
man’s hero, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago is confident that his unproductive streak will soon
come to an end, and he resolves to sail out farther than usual the following day.
On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago does as promised, sailing his
skiff far beyond the island’s shallow coastal waters and venturing into the Gulf Stream.
He prepares his lines and drops them. At noon, a big fish, which he knows is a marlin,
takes the bait that Santiago has placed one hundred fathoms deep in the waters. The
old man expertly hooks the fish, but he cannot pull it in. Instead, the fish begins to pull
the boat.

Unable to tie the line fast to the boat for fear the fish would snap a taut line, the old man
bears the strain of the line with his shoulders, back, and hands, ready to give slack
should the marlin make a run. The fish pulls the boat all through the day, through the
night, through another day, and through another night. It swims steadily northwest until
at last it tires and swims east with the current. The entire time, Santiago endures
constant pain from the fishing line. Whenever the fish lunges, leaps, or makes a dash
for freedom, the cord cuts Santiago badly. Although wounded and weary, the old man
feels a deep empathy and admiration for the marlin, his brother in suffering, strength,
and resolve.

On the third day the fish tires, and Santiago, sleep-deprived, aching, and nearly
delirious, manages to pull the marlin in close enough to kill it with a harpoon thrust.
Dead beside the skiff, the marlin is the largest Santiago has ever seen. He lashes it to
his boat, raises the small mast, and sets sail for home. While Santiago is excited by the
price that the marlin will bring at market, he is more concerned that the people who will
eat the fish are unworthy of its greatness.

As Santiago sails on with the fish, the marlin’s blood leaves a trail in the water and
attracts sharks. The first to attack is a great mako shark, which Santiago manages to
slay with the harpoon. In the struggle, the old man loses the harpoon and lengths of
valuable rope, which leaves him vulnerable to other shark attacks. The old man fights
off the successive vicious predators as best he can, stabbing at them with a crude
spear he makes by lashing a knife to an oar, and even clubbing them with the boat’s
tiller. Although he kills several sharks, more and more appear, and by the time night
falls, Santiago’s continued fight against the scavengers is useless. They devour the
marlin’s precious meat, leaving only skeleton, head, and tail. Santiago chastises
himself for going “out too far,” and for sacrificing his great and worthy opponent. He
arrives home before daybreak, stumbles back to his shack, and sleeps very deeply.

The next morning, a crowd of amazed fishermen gathers around the skeletal carcass of
the fish, which is still lashed to the boat. Knowing nothing of the old man’s struggle,
tourists at a nearby café observe the remains of the giant marlin and mistake it for a
shark. Manolin, who has been worried sick over the old man’s absence, is moved to
tears when he finds Santiago safe in his bed. The boy fetches the old man some coffee
and the daily papers with the baseball scores, and watches him sleep. When the old
man wakes, the two agree to fish as partners once more. The old man returns to sleep
and dreams his usual dream of lions at play on the beaches of Africa.
The Color Purple
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the color, see Purple.

For other uses, see The Color Purple (disambiguation).

The Color Purple

First edition cover

Author Alice Walker

Country United States

Language English

Publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Publication date 1982

ISBN 0-15-119153-0

OCLC 8221433

Dewey Decimal 813.54 19

LC Class PS3573.A425 C6 1982

 The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize
for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.[1][a] It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same
name.
Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of African-American women in the southern
United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American
social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library
Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number seventeen because of
the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.[2][3]

Contents
[hide]

 1Plot summary
 2Themes
o 2.1Sexism and racism
o 2.2Sisterhood
 3Motifs
o 3.1Letters
o 3.2Women's rights
 4Critical reception
 5Character analysis
o 5.1Celie
o 5.2Nettie
o 5.3Shug Avery
o 5.4Albert (known as Mr.___)
 6Film, theatrical, and radio adaptations
 7Boycotting Israel
 8Editions
 9See also
 10Notes
 11References
 12External links

Plot summary[edit]
Celie is a poor, uneducated, 14-year-old girl living in the American South in the 1930s. She writes letters to God
because her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once, a pregnancy
that resulted in the birth of a girl. Alphonso takes the baby girl away shortly after her birth. Celie has a second
child, a boy, whom Alphonso also abducts. Celie's ailing mother dies after cursing Celie on her deathbed.
Celie and her younger sister, 12-year-old Nettie, learn that a man identified only as Mister wants to marry Nettie.
Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, instead arranging for Mister to marry Celie. Mister, needing someone to
care for his children and keep his house, eventually accepts the offer. Mister and his children, whose mother
was murdered by a jealous lover, all treat Celie badly. However, she eventually gets Mister's squalid living
conditions and incorrigible children under control.
Shortly thereafter, Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celie's house, where Mister makes
sexual advances toward her. Celie then advises Nettie to seek assistance from a well-dressed black woman that
she had seen in the general store a while back; the woman had unknowingly adopted Celie's daughter and was
the only black woman that Celie had ever seen with money of her own. Nettie is forced to leave after promising
to write. Celie, however, never receives any letters and concludes that her sister is dead.
Time passes and Mister's children begin to grow up and leave home. Harpo, Mister's son, falls in love with an
assertive girl named Sofia, who becomes pregnant with Harpo's baby and, despite initial resistance from Mister,
marries Harpo. Harpo and Sofia have five more children in short order.
Celie is amazed by Sofia's defiant refusal to submit to Harpo's attempts to control her. Kinder and gentler than
his father, Harpo feels emasculated due to his inability to get Sofia to "mind." Celie advises Harpo not to try to
dominate Sofia; she also tells Harpo that Sofia loves him, admitting that she, Celie, only obeys Mister out of fear.
Harpo temporarily follows Celie's advice but falls back under Mister's sway. A momentarily jealous Celie then
advises Harpo to beat Sofia. Sofia fights back, however, inflicting serious injuries on Harpo.
After Sofia confronts her, Celie, who was already feeling guilty about what she had done, apologizes and
confides in her about all the abuse she suffers at Mister's hands. She also begins to consider Sofia's advice
about defending herself against further abuse from Mister.
Glamorous Shug Avery, a jazz and blues singer and Mister's long-time mistress, falls ill, and Mister takes her
into his house. Celie, who had been fascinated by photos of Shug she found in Mister's belongings, is thrilled to
have her there. Mister's father expresses disapproval of the arrangement, reminding Mister that Shug has three
out-of-wedlock children. Mister proudly states that he knows for certain that all the children have the same
father, indirectly admitting to being their father. Mister's father leaves in disgust after drinking a glass of water
into which Celie spit. While Shug is initially rude to Celie, who has taken charge of nursing her, the two women
become friends, and Celie soon finds herself infatuated with Shug.
Frustrated by Harpo's domineering behavior, Sofia moves out, taking her children with her. Several months later,
Harpo opens a juke joint where a fully recovered Shug performs nightly. Shug decides to stay when she learns
that Mister beats Celie when she is away. Shug and Celie's relationship grows more intimate.
Sofia returns for a visit and promptly gets into a fight with Harpo's new girlfriend, Squeak, knocking Squeak's
teeth out. In town one day, while Sofia is enjoying a day out with her new beau, a prizefighter, and their
respective children, the mayor's wife, Miss Millie, approaches the group. She begins to "finger" Sofia's children
(physically examine them in a way reminiscent of slaves on an auction block) without bothering, at first, to speak
to their mother or ask permission. At first, Sofia silently endures. Miss Millie then looks up and addresses Sofia,
remarking on how clean the children are and bluntly asks Sofia if she would like to be her maid. Sofia, who does
not work as a maid, straightforwardly refuses saying "Hell no." The mayor then pushes his wife aside, calling
Sofia "girl" and daring her to repeat herself. When Sofia does so defiantly, the mayor slaps Sofia. Sofia responds
by using her fist to knock the mayor, her assailant, onto the ground. The police quickly arrive at the scene and
brutally beat Sofia as she pleads with the prizefighter not to intervene on her behalf and instead to take her
children to safety. Sofia emerges from her ordeal with a cracked skull, broken ribs, her face rendered nearly
unrecognizable, and blind in one eye. Sofia is subsequently sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Squeak, a mixed-race woman and Sheriff Hodges' illegitimate niece, attempts to blackmail the sheriff into
releasing Sofia, resulting in her being raped by the sheriff. Squeak cares for Sofia's children while she is
incarcerated, and the two women develop a friendship. Sofia is eventually released and begins working for Miss
Millie, which she detests.
Despite being newly married to a person called Grady, Shug instigates a sexual relationship with Celie on her
next visit. One night Shug asks Celie about her sister, and Shug helps Celie recover letters from Nettie that
Mister has been hiding from her for decades.
The letters indicate that Nettie befriended a missionary couple, Samuel and Corrine, the well-dressed woman
that Celie saw in the store, whom Nettie eventually accompanied to Africa to do missionary work. Samuel and
Corrine have unwittingly adopted Celie's son and daughter (by Celie's father), Adam and Olivia. Corrine, noticing
that her adopted children resemble Nettie, wonders if Samuel fathered the children with her. Increasingly
suspicious, Corrine tries to limit Nettie's role in her family.
Through her letters, Nettie reveals that she has become disillusioned with her missionary work. Corrine becomes
ill with a fever. Nettie asks Samuel to tell her how he adopted Olivia and Adam. Realizing that Adam and Olivia
are Celie's children, Nettie then learns that Alphonso is her and Celie's stepfather. Their biological father was a
store owner whom white men lynched because they resented his success. She also learns that their mother
suffered a mental collapse after the death of her husband and that Alphonso exploited the situation in order to
control their mother's considerable wealth.
Nettie confesses to Samuel and Corrine that she is in fact their children's biological aunt. The gravely ill Corrine
refuses to believe her until Nettie reminds her of her previous encounter with Celie in the store. Later, Corrine
dies, finally having accepted Nettie's story. Meanwhile, Celie visits Alphonso, who confirms Nettie's story. Celie
begins to lose some of her faith in God, which she confides to Shug, who explains to Celie her own unique
religious philosophy.
Celie, having had enough of her husband's abuse, decides to leave Mister along with Shug and Squeak, who is
considering a singing career of her own. Celie puts a curse on Mister before leaving him for good.
Celie settles in Tennessee and supports herself as a seamstress. She learns that Mister, suffering from a
considerable decline in fortunes after Celie left him, has changed dramatically; he gives Celie permission to call
him by his first name, Albert. Albert proposes that they marry "in the spirit as well as in the flesh," but Celie
declines.
Alphonso dies, Celie inherits his land, and moves back into her childhood home. Around this time, Shug falls in
love with Germaine, a member of her band, and the news thereof crushes Celie. Shug travels with Germaine, all
the while writing postcards to Celie. Celie pledges to love Shug even if Shug does not love her back.
Meanwhile, Nettie and Samuel marry and prepare to return to America. Before they leave, Adam marries Tashi,
an African girl. Following an African tradition, Tashi undergoes the painful rituals of female circumcision and
facial scarring. In solidarity, Adam undergoes the same facial scarring ritual.
Just after Celie realizes that she is content in her life without Shug, Shug returns, having ended things with
Germaine. The end of the novel has Nettie, Samuel, Olivia, Adam, and Tashi arriving at Celie's house. Nettie
and Celie embrace, having not seen each other for over 30 years. They introduce one another to their respective
families as the novel ends.

Themes[edit]
Sexism and racism[edit]
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Themes of sexism and racism are prevalent in the entire novel as a reflection of the social contexts surrounding
the novel's setting. Celie, as the main protagonist and narrator, exhibits internalized oppression when she
advises Harpo to beat Sofia, as this was how she was treated by Mister. Shortly after, however, it is revealed
that Celie merely advised Harpo in doing that as she was jealous of Sofia's strong-mindedness and
assertiveness. Later on in the novel, Celie also begins to find strength within her to reject the violent advances of
Mister.
Racism as an issue is seen in how Sofia was imprisoned and violently beaten for rejecting the mayor's wife's
"offer" to be her maid (where the offer in itself was a reflection of racism). Nettie, in her letters, also indicates her
reflecting the racial stereotypes held by American Blacks against their African counterparts. Inscribing a copy of
the novel for a PEN auction in 2014, Alice Walker wrote on the half-title: "I was mistaken. There is nothing more
for me to say about this book."[4]
Sisterhood[edit]
The bond of sisterhood is another major theme in The Color Purple. Walker places a strong emphasis in the
novel on the sisterhood between the various women characters. She not only draws attention to and recognizes
the importance of the literal sisterhood between Celie and Nettie, and how that relationship helps Celie get
through all the hard times she has had to endure, but it also recognizes the strong relationships that form
between Celie and other characters such as Shug, Squeak and Sofia. Celie could not have made all of the
personal and internal advancements that she did if it weren’t for her strong relationships with Shug, Nettie,
Squeak and Sofia. These women can come to understand who they are because of the ties that bring them and
bond them together.[5] Celie is able to become a fighter and stand up for herself because of the love she
receives, especially from Shug.[6] Sisterhood, or love, helps Celie to understand her worth in the world, what she
really wants out of life, and that she can achieve so much more. This plays a pivotal role in the story and recurs
as a major contributor to Celie’s advancements toward happiness and freedom from oppression.

Motifs[edit]
Letters[edit]
Alice Walker highlights the power of communication through the characters' letter writing form.[7] The letters that
Celie writes to God, and later to her sister Nettie, symbolize a certain voice that only Celie has, and through
which she is able to express her true desires in her letters. These letters are very personal to her, and allow her
to display any emotion she wants to convey. In the beginning, when she was writing letters only to God, the
letters were very private and Celie would not have wanted anyone to see them. The letters are the only way she
can represent her true feelings and despair as she is abused. Later, the letters she gets from Nettie give her
hope that she will be reunited with her sister again.
Celie writes to God for a lack of someone else to write to. She writes to her sister because she is angry at God
because of her past and the people who have been hurt because of it. She asks God "Why?" which is a question
that cannot be answered. The last letter she writes is to everyone, including God showing that she has forgiven
Him, and that her story has gone through a full circle of maturation.
Women's rights[edit]
Alice Walker shows her affection for the equality of women, specifically African-American women, in The Color
Purple in various ways. Toward the beginning, we see Celie married off to the man that initially wanted Nettie.
Her husband is referred to as "Mr._______", without any surname given, showing that he was master of Celie,
not her equal. Celie is abused throughout her life with Mr._______, and is made to endure the abuse without
question. As a woman writing letters to her sister, the lack of a surname given to her husband could represent a
lack of respect she had for him, in regard to how he treated her. Surnames give meaning to life and meaning to
who they are, and by refusing to give her husband that respect, we see her asserting what little dominance she
has over him. Charles Heglar's article, "Named and Nameless: Alice Walker's Pattern of Surnames in The Color
Purple", suggests that Celie refuses her husband a surname in order to assert what little power she has in the
relationship.[8] Her decision later in the book to grant him a name (albeit it a first name and not a surname) could
symbolize growing respect between the characters as her estranged husband atones for his abuse.

Critical reception[edit]
The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, making Walker the first woman of color to win the
prize.[9][10] Walker also won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1983.[11] Mel Watkins of the New York Times
Book Review wrote that it is a "striking and consummately well-written novel," praising its powerful emotional
impact and epistolary structure.[12]
While the novel has garnered critical acclaim, it has also been the subject of controversy. It is 17th on
the American Library Association's list of most frequently challenged or banned books.[13] Commonly cited
justications for banning the book include sexual explicitness, explicit language, violence, and
homosexuality.[14]The book received greater scrutiny amidst controversy surrounding the release of the film
adaptation in 1985.[15] The controversy centered around the depiction of black men, which some critics saw as
feeding stereotypical narratives of black male violence, while others found the representation compelling and
relatable.[16]

Character analysis[edit]
Celie[edit]
Celie is the main character and has been oppressed by men her whole life. She is raped by her [supposed]
father, with whom she has two children during her adolescence, and who he gives away. Her [supposed] father
then gives her away to be married to Mr.___ , who is in love with Shug Avery, a blues singer. When Shug comes
to recover from an illness with Mr.___ and Celie, it leads to a sexual relationship between Celie and Shug. Shug
has a significant influence on the protagonist, who begins to model herself after the independent Shug, leading
her ultimately to independence. Shug influences not only the way that Celie allows Mr.___ to treat her, but also
her showing Celie that it is all right to commit actions that others may call 'sin', but still believe in and live for
God, thereby broadening Celie's views on religion and ethics. It is also Shug who frees Celie from Mr.___'s
bondage, first by loving her, then by helping her to start a custom sewing business. From Shug, Celie learns that
Mister [now revealed as Albert] has been hiding letters written to her from Africa by her sister Nettie, a
missionary. These letters, full of educated, firsthand observation of African life, form a moving counterpoint to
Celie's life. They reveal that in Africa, just as in America, women are persistently oppressed by men.[17]
Nettie[edit]
Nettie is Celie's younger sister, whom Celie loves and saves from living the tragic life that she had to endure.
Because Nettie is prettier than Celie, who has been deemed ugly, Mr.___ is originally interested in Nettie as a
wife, but settles for Celie. Nettie runs away from home to be with Celie, but is unable to stay with Celie as
Mr.___ tries to assault her sexually. As a result, Nettie leaves home and before leaving, promises to write to
Celie and tells her that only death can keep them apart. Nettie is eventually taken in by Samuel and Corrine, a
missionary couple, with whom she travels to Africa as a missionary. While in Africa, Nettie becomes the
caregiver of Samuel and Corrine's children and faithfully writes to Celie for decades. Nettie marries Samuel after
Corrine's death and moves back to America with what are revealed to be Celie's biological children. Through
explaining her experiences to Celie, Nettie encourages Celie to be more enthusiastic and optimistic about life.
Nettie finds that while there is not racial disparity in Africa, gender disparity exists. The women of the tribe are
not treated as equals, and are not permitted to attend school.
Shug Avery[edit]
A sultry blues singer who first appears as Mr.___'s mistress, Shug becomes Celie's friend and eventually her
lover. Shug remains a gentle mentor who helps Celie evolve into an independent and assertive woman. At first,
Shug doesn't appear to be the mothering and nurturing kind, yet she nurtures Celie physically, spiritually, and
emotionally. Shug helps Celie discover the letters from her sister Nettie that Mr.___ had been hiding for
decades. In allowing Celie to view these letters, Shug supplies her with even more hope and inspiration, letting
Celie see that in the end, everything works out for the best.
Albert (known as Mr.___)[edit]
Mr.___ is the man to whom Celie is married. Originally, he seeks a relationship with Nettie but settles for Celie.
Mr.___ mistreats Celie just as her stepfather had, although Celie does not understand that she doesn't have to
tolerate the abuse. Mr.___ uses Celie to help raise his children, who give her a hard time because she is not
their biological mother. When Shug Avery comes to town, Mr.___ falls for her and makes her his mistress.
Through Shug's seductive and manipulative influence, Albert begins to treat Celie better. In the end, Albert
realizes that he has mistreated Celie and seeks a friendship with her.

Film, theatrical, and radio adaptations