Essays on Characters In The Novel

Introduction

Desirable Daughters is a novel by Bharati Mukherjee that seeks to illustrate the intricate relations that exist between the Indian caste system and the Western experiences of the immigrants in an effort towards reconciling the world views regarding the feminist gap between the two cultures. In a bid to reveal the intricacies of the caste system in India, Mukherjee delves deeper into the nature of three sisters in the novel and the circumstances they find themselves as they try to fit in different societies. From the outset, it is worth noting that the three sisters from Calcutta belong to ...

Tim O'Brien's “ The Things They Carried” is a work of fiction but throughout the novel there is a blend of truth and fiction. The novel is a collection of twenty two stories interrelated stories that speak of the author’s experience in the Vietnam war. By including fiction as well as the comments of the characters in his stories,O’Brien presents an ambiguous story about war. He says that war and its experiences cannot be generalized and there is so much more to it than heroism, courage, fear, death and pain. Especially in the story, “How to tell ...

Published in 1889, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate is set in revolutionary Mexico of the early twentieth century. At that time, society and the family institution exercised an authoritative and oppressive control on women’s activities and expression; in fact, such control had existed since colonial times, Up until recent times, women had been playing a subservient role from which even in the twenty-first century they are still struggling to break themselves free. Not only were women denied participation in society and politics as individuals with their own voice and identity, but they were mostly confined to ...

Narrative point of view refers to the position of the narrator in relation to the story that one is narrating. As such, when evaluating the point of view of the narrator, one focuses on the relationship between the narrator and the characters in the story. There are three major points of view that narrators can adopt while narrating a story. These are first-person, second-person, and third-person point of views. Either of the foregoing points of views have different effect on the understanding and believability of the characters or the story being told, as is evident from O Pioneers! and ...

Romanticism is an element that has played a crucial role in the development of literature from the 18th century. This philosophy has had a noticeable effect on many literature works including Nathaniel’s The Scarlet Letter. It is easy to identify its influence in the novel because it is very clear that Nathaniel Hawthorne was a supporter of romanticism and that is the reason he presents many issues with the philosophy of romanticism in the novel. The Scarlet Letter is a gothic romanticism novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne during the romanticism period. The book features the story of two ...

Throughout the novel, Max Havelaar, there are different narratives, each describing or talking about the world that they inhabit. The narratives offer a view of what the characters think of each other and the system that they live under. The novel is full of interwoven storylines. Together with the narrative of the Multatuli, Droogstoppel and Stern are the native stories. The narratives and the stories in the novel lead to the conclusion that there are different stories told from the perspective of the actors. James Scott in his work, “Behind the Official Story” describes the presence of the public, ...

Influence in The Picture of Dorian Gray And The Book of Job

The Picture of Dorian gray is a novel written by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is the main character in this book and it revolves around his life and how the characters in the novel influence the protagonist’s life. Dorian Gray is depicted as a wealthy, beautiful, and unspoiled male who changes his life completely by sinning and pleasure after meeting Lord Henry who totally influenced his life. Wilde writes a story whereby the main character Dorian Gray is influenced to embark on a hedonistic life; a life he had feared for a very long time. Dorian was an innocent man who was forced to ...

Book Report on “The Maltese Falcon”

Book Report on “The Maltese Falcon” is a crime novel book that was written first in 1930 by the author Dashiell Hammet. The book belongs to the genre of crime fiction or mystery novel. At the time this was called “hard boiled” crime fiction and it was a very popular type of book. The story centers around the character Sam Spade, who is the protagonist of the book. Sam Spade along with another detective, Miles Archer, is hired by to follow a man named Floyd Thursdby. At first it is just a case of Thursby running off with the man who ...

Colum McCann’s award winning novel Let the Great World Spin published in 2009 contains characters that exhibit a tendency for being in error, making mistakes, and going astray. Readers may see these as the unavoidable result of emotionally distressing experiences that McCann keeps alluding to, such as segregation and the Civil Rights movement that followed the Vietnam War, and others. Even though the characters in the novel seem to hurt themselves and each other, it is arguable that McCann’s novel is more about reconciliation. To some extent, the term ‘reconciliation’ invokes a religious meaning in the sense that ...

Introduction

“Animal Farm” was written by George Orwell. It is a satire and political literature. The original title of the novel is “Animal Farm: A Fairy Story” that proves it as a fable written with a purpose. However, the author did a wonderful attempt to present the political crisis and tyrannical government through a story of animals in a farm. It is a dystopian and allegorical novel. Orwell’s intention is to reflect Russian Revolution and reign of Stalin in Soviet Union. The novel is about the life of animals in a farm. They wanted to rebel and save themselves from the clutches of men and set new ...

Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American explores themes such as love, politics, ideals and engagement through the characters both major and minor. The three major characters in the novel, Pyle, Fowler and Phuong are in a way representative of their countries at that time. The way each looks at the other brings out the basic conflict between them. Pyle stands for everything that is the idealistic New America, heroic, nosey with a savior mentality that wants to usher in democracy in countries that do not really welcome it. Fowler, the ageing journalist is a character that is symptomatic of the ...

Characters in any piece of literature carries the message or at times they act as guides for a particular message. Additionally, it will be easier to determine the significance of these characters through the way they conduct themselves in the novel. Therefore, this paper will focus on the significance of the main characters in the novel “The Journey to the West.” Notwithstanding, characterization will be discussed based on the novel, “The Journey to the West.” This literature is considered to be one of the greatest classical novels. The literature was initially published in the 1590s during Ming Dynasty. The ...

Introduction

Tobias Smollett is regarded as one of the most important novelist in the 18th century Great Britain. The 18th century is when the first true novels emerged as a new form of literary expression and Smollett introduced notable works during the era such as the “The Expedition of Humpry Clinker”. The novel follows the epistolary form where a series of documents such as letters were resembled to create the novel. This literary approach was popular during the 18th century where the aforementioned novel by Smollett was published. The objective of this critical analysis is to examine the components of Smollett’s ...

Introduction

Discussion The reality of the matter is that gender discrimination has been a matter debated upon for too long with little action emanating from such debates. As a social phenomenon, gender discrimination has great sociological significance and concern. While this broadly reflects the discrimination of either gender, the discrimination against women and female children is particularly pervasive the world over. The novel The God of small things reminds the reader of this stark reality, and goes further to help one fathom the dynamics, intricacies and the inept results of the social vice. Gender discrimination takes many forms and manifests ...

William Faulner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’ is a literature piece depicting the social interaction in a family setting. The literature piece involves the use of many symbolic applications in the unreal world and other factors from human characters. Faulkner expands his imagination beyond the human character. However, Faulkner uses each and every symbolism in the novel in relation to human character. Furthermore, characterization in the novel is based on human character that can be compared or symbolized through another non-human character. This ability ensures the continuity of the plot as the characters are developed under different archetypes. Faulkner creates ...

The Bridge of San Luis Ray is a novel written by Thornton Wilder. The story presents a dilemma as to whether the tragedy that occurred is as a result of divine intervention or by chance. The setting of the novel takes place in Lima, the capital city of Peru. It talks about the demise in titular San Luis bridge’s collapse when five people were crossing it. The novel explores the lives of five people who perished in the bridge and reveals their life struggles for survival. Moreover, it talks of the sadness that is created by the undying love of the ...

The book The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat may be comprised of several short stories but it is integrated in such a way that it conveys one story at the end of it all. The author uses several characters to bring forth his central themes in a very artistic way. It is for this reason that the roles of both men and women are used independently to develop the main character who is the Dew Breaker himself. One such character is Ka, who is the daughter of the protagonist. She helps bring out the other side of the protagonist which he ...

In E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, the American Melting Pot is represented by a variety of characters, all of whom experience and communicate with each other in numerous important ways. One of the more fascinating and closely-connected characters in the novel is Evelyn Nesbit, who is told by Emma Goldman early in the novel, “But there are correspondences, you see, our lives correspond, our spirits touch each other like notes in harmony, and in the total human fate we are sisters” (60-61). This sentence sums up the spirit of the book – everyone is connected, and everyone corresponds with each other in ...

Introduction

Point of Comparison The first point of comparison between a happy pig and depressed human can be observed in the major character of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. After Gatsby’s meeting with Daisy, there was an apparent change in him. It seems that Daisy has a strong characteristic that changed Gatsby from a happy pig into a depressed man. The mere fact Gatsby has the materialistic possessions that only the intellectual individuals would have attained made Daisy believe that Gatsby is in fact a person of intellect. On the other hand, Gatsby’s blooming interest on Daisy opened him up to a profound change. ...

Claudius and power

Quest for Power is one of the main agenda that Claudius had in his mind as he lived. He had purposed that he will not see his grave before occupying the coveted seat of the king. Claudius who is a character in Shakespeare's hamlet has been displayed to love power and would do anything to have it. This was done not considering the pain it would cause to him or to those around him, all that mattered to him was to get the position and maintain it. As we shall analyse in this paper, the greed that Claudius had did ...

Copperfield is the title of one of the most famous books authored by Charles Dickens. David Copperfield was published in 1850 at the time when industrialization was at its zenith in the United Kingdom. Many analysts argue that David Copperfield is a semi biography of Charles Dickens and the events in the novel are intertwined with real events in Dickens’s life. This novel explores the journey of a young boy called David Copperfield from his boyhood to adulthood. For the purposes of this essay, we examine the unnamed character waiter. We study how he reinforces themes and motifs of the ...

Karen Tei Yamashita is an American based Japanese author who has wide knowledge in literature and creative writing. Her book, the tropic of Orange has outlined many critical aspects of literature and creative writing. This book was written to explain magical events that had occurred due to the introduction of oranges in Los Angeles (Gier 10). In this book, the author uses the various jobs done by the characters to outline her ideas. One important theme in this book is the theme of labor. The main reason for this is that it was a contributing factor to some situations that ...

The color purple by Alice Walker, it’s a novel which discusses and narrates issues concerning gender inequalities, discrimination and racism within a community based in South America, in the early 1900’s. The main character in the novel “Celie” is a young black woman abused and violated by close members of her family such as, his father and his husband. In this case the novel raised questions to readers of the novel, making them eager wanting to know why didn’t “Celie” tell her mother what his father was doing to her? Another question triggered to readers is; did Celie really ...