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AMERICAN SUMMARIES

The Catcher in the Rye

Author: J.D. Salinger

Time period: Modernism

Language: English

 

Holden Caulfield is expelled from Pencey Prep, a boarding school in Pennsylvania, and aimlessly wanders the streets of New York City. Before his expulsion, Holden failed all of his classes at Pencey except English, left his fencing gear in a New York subway station angered his team, and was embarrassed by his history teacher, Mr. Spencer. Holden is perturbed by his roommate, Robert Ackley, and writes an English composition about his brother’s baseball glove to his enemy, Stradlater. Allie Caulfield is one of Holden’s brothers, who died from leukemia. Holden becomes increasingly annoyed at Pencey, with Stradlater going on a date with his crush, Jane Gallagher. After being upset with the “phonies” at his school he leaves to go on a subway to New York where he meets the obnoxious mother of Ernest Morrow and discusses where the ducks in Central Lagoon migrate to during the winter to a taxi driver. Holden calls up a prostitute named Sunny yet refuses her, causing her to come back with her pimp Maurice demanding money. Maurice takes Holden’s money and Holden dreams of him shooting him with an automatic pistol. Holden then meets at Biltmore Theater with his date Sally Hayes, buys a “Little Shirley Beans” record for his little sister, Phoebe Caulfield, and goes ice skating at Rockefeller Center. He goes to a bar where he encounters Carl Luce, one of Holden’s former classmates. However, Carl leaves uncomfortably after Holden perturbs him of his supposed homosexuality and goes to Central Park to investigate ducks, where he breaks his record. Holden sneaks back home to see Phoebe where he shares his fantasy to her about saving children through a field of rye. He explains to her how he would save them before they fall off the cliff, to which Phoebe corrects him, explaining that he misheard Robert Burns’ poem called “Comin’ Thro the Rye.” Holden breaks into tears and leaves to stay at his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini’s house. Mr. Antolini gives him life advice but Holden quickly leaves after waking up to him patting his head, interpreting it as a sexual advance. He goes to sleep at Grand Central Terminal and regrets leaving Mr. Antolini’s house. Holden decides to move out west and dreams of living in a log cabin with his “deaf-mute” girlfriend. Before leaving, he decides to visit Phoebe’s school and sees vulgar graffiti on the walls, symbolizing the tarnishment of innocence. He takes Phoebe to the zoo where the novel ends with Phoebe riding a carousel and giving Holden back the red hunting hat he gifted her with. He finally goes back to his parents to tell them that he is going to a different school in September. 

Moby Dick

Author: Herman Melville

Time Period: “The American Renaissance"

Language: English


The novel opens with the main protagonist famously stating, “Call me Ishmael.” It begins with Ishmael meeting his friend, Queequeg, in New Bedford Massachusetts. The two then go to Nantucket where they board the Pequod, a ship made with the bones and teeth of a sperm whale and led by Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab announces to the Pequod that his missing leg is due to the attack of a violent sperm whale, Moby Dick, and devotes his life to killing the whale. He nails a gold doubloon to the ship and announces it as a prize for the man who first sees Moby Dick. The Pequod travels through Africa and encounters other whaling ships such as the Jeroboam, led by the disillusioned fortune teller, Captain Gabriel. A cabin boy Pip jumps out of the Pequod and into the ocean, causing him to go insane and become a prophet jester. The Pequod also encounters the Samuel Enderby, led by Captain Boomer who also encountered Moby Dick and lost his arm. Queequeg then falls ill and dies whilst Fedallah, the leader of Ahab’s harpoon crew predicts three prophecies; that Ahab will not die until he has seen the three “hearses” of the sea, one will be “not made by mortal hands,” and that the other must be made of wood from America. All three prophecies prove to be true when a typhoon hits the Pequod, and a member on the ship, Starbuck, predicts it to be an omen. Ahab finally finds Moby Dick and fails at attacking it, accidentally killing Fedallah in the process. On the third day, Moby Dick attacks the Pequod, killing Ahab and the ship crew, leaving only Ishmael alive. Ishmael escapes the whirlpool by floating on top of his friend Queequeg's coffin until the ship Rachel finds him and rescues him.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

Time period: 1960

Language: English


Scout Finch lives with her brother Jem and father Atticus Finch in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. A boy named Dill visits Maycomb for the summer, whom Scout and Jem befriend. Dill becomes fascinated by the Radley Place, a house on their street inhabited by Nathan Radley and Arthur (“Boo”) Radley. Later Scout attends school for the first time and collects gifts left for her and Jem in a knothole of a tree on the Radley Property, believing it to be for them. Dill returns the following summer where Scout and Jem continue speculating about Boo's presence and act out his story. The three sneak onto the Radley Property and Nathan Radley shoots at them, causing Jem to lose his pants whilst trying to escape, only for them to be mended and hung on the Radley fence upon his return. Meanwhile Atticus defends a Black man named Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a white woman in court. The dismay of Maycomb’s racist community makes Jem and Scout subject to abuse from other children. The next summer Dill returns along with Atticus’ sister, Alexandra. Tom Robinson’s trial begins and while he is placed in jail, a mob gathers to lynch him but is stopped by Scout when she questions a man in the mob about his son. During his trial Atticus provides clear evidence of the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father Bob to be lying. However despite Tom’s clear innocence he is still convicted by the white jury and later shot to death, the situation becoming a traumatic memory for Jem. Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge made a fool out of him and breaks into the judge’s house, menaces Tom’s widow, and attacks Scout and Jem on their way home from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes and saves the children, stabbing and killing Ewell in the process. Scout later sympathizes with Boo and feels grateful for his kindness, embracing her father’s advice to not view the world through prejudice and hatred.

The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Time period: Modernism

Language: English

​

Nick Carraway is from Minnesota and was educated at Yale before he moved to the West Egg district of Long Island where he meets his neighbor, Jay Gatsby, who lives in a large Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every weekend. Nick is invited to dinner in East Egg with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. Nick then begins a relationship with Jordan Baker, who tells Nick about Tom’s affair with Myrtle Wilson, who lives in an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City called the Valley of Ashes. Intrigued by this information, Nick goes to New York City for a party with Tom and Myrtle in the apartment that Tom keeps for his affair with Myrtle, unbeknownst to Daisy. Myrtle taunts Tom about Daisy at the party, leading him to break her nose. Nick is then invited to one of Gatsby’s parties along with Jordan Baker, where he meets Gatsby himself and is nicknamed “old sport.” At the party, Jordan is spoken to by Gatsby alone, who later reports to Nick that Gatsby is in love with Daisy and that Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle is only an attempt to impress her. Gatsby requests Nick to arrange a reunion between him and Daisy, which Nick executes by inviting Daisy for tea. After the reunion, Daisy and Gatsby begin their affair and Tom grows suspicious. After he sees Gatsby stare at Daisy longingly, Tom grows outraged and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where he asserts to Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal. When Nick, Jordan and Tom drive past the valley of ashes, they find Gatsby’s car and Myrtle dead. The three rush back to Long Island where Nick learns from Gatsby that it was Daisy who drove the car and killed Myrtle, but Gatsby insists on taking the blame. Tom then tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby murdered Myrtle with his car. Outraged and assuming that Gatsby had an affair with Myrtle, George shoots Gatsby in his mansion pool and later shoots himself. Nick then stages a funeral for Gatsby and moves back to the Midwest out of disgust for the moral decay of the luxurious lives of the East Coast. Nick concludes that Gatsby’s dream of a romantic relationship with Daisy was corrupted by his pursuit of wealth and money and that the American dream, just like Gatsby’s dream, is dead.

The Raven

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

Time period: 1845, American Romanticism

Language: English

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“Once upon a midnight dreary” in a “bleak December,” the poem follows a sorrowful narrator who mourns the loss of his beloved Lenore. When he tries to distract himself by reading “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,” he hears a tapping at his chamber door. Upon investigating the sound, the poem’s title figure, a raven, appears perched on a “pallid bust of Pallas” above the door. 
The raven that only answers with the word “nevermore,” intensifies the narrator’s despair after every question he asks. The narrator visualizes “Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor” and begs for “nepenthe,” a drug to forget his suffering. He questions the raven about the possibility of reuniting with Lenore in the afterlife, asking, “is there balm Gilead?” and whether he will ‘clasp a sainted maiden,” in “the distant Aidenn.” The raven’s repetition of “nevermore” keeps crushing his hopes, leaving him to lament on and imploring the raven to “get back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore.”

A Raisin in the Sun

Author: Lorraine Hansberry

Time period: 1959, Social Realism

Language: English

​

  • Takes place in the 1950s, in a small, worn apartment on the South Side of Chicago

  • The Younger family consists of three generations: Mama (Lena), her son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, their son Travis, and daughter Beneatha

  • The family shares a hallway bathroom with neighbors (lack of independence)

  • Title comes from Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem” (“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”)

  • Reflects racial segregation and housing discrimination, inspired by Hansberry’s own family’s legal battle (Hansberry v. Lee, 1940)

  • First play by a Black female playwright (Lorraine Hansberry) on Broadway (1959)

 

Act I 

  • The family awaits a $10,000 insurance check from the late Big Walter’s life insurance policy

  • Mama (Lena Younger) wants to buy a house with a yard and a garden, fulfilling her and Big Walter’s lifelong dream

    • She tends to a potted plant, symbolizing her deferred hopes that survive “without much light”

  • Walter Lee Younger (her son) wants to invest in a liquor store with Willy Harris and Bobo, seeing it as a path to independence and status

  • Ruth Younger (Walter’s wife) supports Mama’s housing plan. She’s exhausted, works as a domestic, and is emotionally disconnected from Walter

    • She discovers she’s pregnant and puts down $5 for an abortion, fearing the family can’t afford another child.

  • Beneatha Younger (Mama’s daughter) wants to use part of the money for medical school and seeks cultural identity beyond assimilation

    • Rejects religion (“There is no God!”), prompting Mama to slap her, demanding reverence for God

    • Experiments with African heritage and modern ideas

Obscure details:

  • Beneatha straightens her hair, which Asagai calls “mutilation," symbolizing assimilation into white beauty standards

  • Her later decision to wear it natural marks a reclaiming of identity and cultural pride

  • Walter and Ruth’s son Travis sleeps on the living room couch

  • Big Walter (deceased father) is said to have “worked himself to death” for his family, symbolizing the generational cost of dreams

​

Act II 

  • Mama buys a house for $3,500 in Clybourne Park, an all-white neighborhood, a radical act in segregated 1950s Chicago.

    • She dreams of sunlight, a yard, and planting her garden

  • Walter feels emasculated that Mama spent the money without him. He spirals into depression, skipping work and drinking. To restore his pride, Mama gives Walter $6,500:

    • $3,000 to put aside for Beneatha’s education

    • $3,500 to invest as he sees fit.

  • Walter entrusts Willy Harris with the full sum

  • Willy runs off with all the money, including Beneatha’s medical school funds

  • Meanwhile, Beneatha becomes more radical:

    • Asagai (Nigerian student and suitor) calls her “Alaiyo”, meaning “one for whom bread is not enough,” showing her intellectual and spiritual hunger

    • George Murchison, her wealthy suitor, represents assimilation; Beneatha mocks his “white shoes” and materialism

  • The Clybourne Park house becomes a future connection to Bruce Norris’s 2010 play Clybourne Park

  • Mama uses the same wrapping paper for the plant and the house documents, connecting them symbolically

  • Bobo appears briefly to deliver the news that Willy has absconded with the money

 

Act III 

  • The family is devastated by the loss

  • Beneatha becomes bitter, denouncing Walter’s materialism and questioning whether “human race is worth saving”

  • Asagai offers philosophical comfort, urging her to return to Africa with him to help build a new nation and find purpose

  • Karl Lindner, representative of the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, reappears

    • His polite racism masks a bribe as he offers to buy back the house so the Youngers won’t move into the white neighborhood

  • Walter initially plans to accept Lindner’s offer, saying pride can’t feed his son

  • In the final scene, Walter rejects the buyout, saying they are a proud family that deserves to live wherever they choose.

    • He tells Lindner, “We have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by brick.”

  • Mama proudly affirms Walter’s manhood, saying, “He finally come into his manhood today”

  • As the family packs, Mama lingers to take her plant, whispering, “It expresses ME”

  • The play ends as they leave for Clybourne Park​

  • Travis’s presence in the final scene (Walter addressing Lindner in front of his son) demonstrates generational pride. The play ends before they physically move (the audience is in suspense)

The Scarlet Letter

Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time period: Romanticism, 1850

Language: English

​

Characters

  • Hester Prynne – Young Puritan woman; commits adultery while her husband is presumed lost at sea; publicly shamed with a scarlet letter “A”; strong, resilient, charitable, and independent

  • Pearl – Hester’s illegitimate daughter; impish, willful, and intuitive; often embodies the consequences of Hester’s sin but also serves as a moral compass

  • Roger Chillingworth – Hester’s estranged husband; a scholar who practices medicine in Boston under a false identity; obsessed with revenge against Hester’s unknown lover

  • Arthur Dimmesdale – Young Puritan minister; Hester’s secret lover; suffers from psychological and physical deterioration due to guilt and Chillingworth’s manipulations

​

Plot

  • Jonathan Pue discovers a manuscript and a scarlet “A” in the Salem customhouse attic

  • Hester Prynne is publicly shamed on the Boston scaffold for adultery, wearing the scarlet letter “A” and carrying her infant daughter, Pearl

  • Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, has survived, adopted a false identity, and arrives in Boston, seeking revenge

  • Hester raises Pearl alone in a small cottage on the outskirts of Boston; ostracized but self-sufficient through seamstress work

  • Community officials try to remove Pearl, but Arthur Dimmesdale defends Hester and Pearl, concealing his own role as Pearl’s father

  • Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale, posing as his physician, gradually torturing him psychologically while suspecting him as Hester’s lover

  • Dimmesdale’s health declines due to guilt; he secretly punishes himself and struggles with moral torment

  • Hester’s public charitable acts earn her a tentative social reprieve

  • Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale briefly meet on the scaffold at night; a meteor creates a red “A” in the sky, symbolically linking the three.

  • Hester pleads with Chillingworth to stop tormenting Dimmesdale; he refuses

  • Hester and Dimmesdale plan to flee Boston to Europe with Pearl; Hester removes her scarlet letter and lets down her hair

  • Chillingworth discovers their plan and books passage on the same ship

  • On the day of departure, after delivering a powerful sermon, Dimmesdale publicly confesses on the scaffold, exposing a scarlet letter seared into his chest, and dies; Pearl kisses him

  • Chillingworth dies a year later, frustrated and vengeful

  • Hester and Pearl leave Boston; Hester later returns alone, resumes charitable work, and continues wearing the scarlet letter

  • Pearl marries a European aristocrat and writes occasionally to Hester

  • Hester dies and is buried beside Dimmesdale; both share a tombstone marked with a scarlet “A”

A Streetcar Named Desire

Author: Tennessee Williams

Time period: Southern Gothic, 1947

Language: English

 

​Characters

  • Blanche DuBois

    • Former English schoolteacher from Laurel, Mississippi

    • Name means “white woods”

    • Suffers from mental instability, alcoholism, and delusion

    • Lost family estate Belle Reve (“Beautiful Dream”)

    • Haunted by guilt over her young husband Allan Grey’s suicide (after she discovered his homosexuality)

    • Fired from her teaching job for seducing a 17-year-old student

    • Eventually institutionalized after a mental breakdown

  • Stella Kowalski (née DuBois)

    • Blanche’s younger sister

    • Married to Stanley Kowalski, a working-class man

    • Torn between love for her husband and loyalty to Blanche

    • Pregnant during the play

    • Ultimately chooses denial over believing Blanche’s rape accusation

  • Stanley Kowalski

    • Stella’s husband; of Polish descent

    • A mechanic/auto-parts worker; embodiment of raw masculinity and New South vitality

    • Distrusts and despises Blanche’s airs of superiority

    • Beats Stella and later rapes Blanche, representing dominance over “old Southern gentility”

    • Famous for the line “STELLA!” (after striking her and begging her return)

  • Harold “Mitch” Mitchell

    • Stanley’s friend and poker buddy

    • Lives with his sick mother

    • Kind and lonely; initially romantic interest for Blanche

    • Rejects Blanche upon discovering her past; attempts to force himself on her before she screams “Fire!”

  • Eunice Hubbell

    • The Kowalskis’ upstairs neighbor and landlady

    • Married to Steve Hubbell

    • Advises Stella to ignore Blanche’s rape claim

​

Summary

Scene 1–2: 

  • Blanche arrives at Stella’s Elysian Fields apartment, claiming she’s on leave for “nerves.”

  • Reveals she lost Belle Reve to foreclosure; shows Stanley legal papers proving it.

  • Stanley’s suspicion begins (under “Napoleonic Code,” he believes he’s owed part of Stella’s inheritance).

  • Blanche’s disdain for the working-class setting contrasts Stanley’s physical vitality.

Scene 3–4: 

  • Poker game introduces Stanley’s friends: Mitch, Steve, Pablo.

  • Blanche flirts with Mitch; they bond over mutual loneliness.

  • Stanley’s drunken rage: throws radio out the window, strikes Stella.

  • Stella flees upstairs; Blanche begs her to leave him.

  • Stanley famously cries “STELL-AHHH!” in the rain.

  • Stella returns to him passionately.

Scene 5–6:

  • Blanche writes to Shep Huntleigh, a rich old suitor, seeking escape.

  • Flirts with a young newspaper boy (“I want to kiss you—just once, softly and sweetly”), echoing her predatory pattern.

  • Later date with Mitch: she confides about her husband Allan Grey, whose homosexual affair and subsequent suicide traumatized her.

Scene 7–9: 

  • Stanley investigates Blanche’s past — learns she was known as “The Flamingo Hotel woman”, evicted for promiscuity.

  • Also learns she was fired for seducing a student.

  • During Blanche’s birthday dinner, Stanley gives her a cruel “present”: a bus ticket to Laurel.

  • Mitch doesn’t show up; tension peaks, Stella goes into labor.

  • Later, Mitch confronts Blanche drunk, confirming the rumors.

  • Blanche admits the truth, explaining her “intimacies with strangers” were attempts to fill emotional voids.

  • Mitch attempts to rape her; she cries “Fire!” to drive him away.

Scene 10–11: 

  • Stanley returns from hospital; Blanche claims Shep Huntleigh is coming for her.

  • Stanley taunts her, leading to implied rape.

  • Weeks later, Blanche believes she’s leaving for a cruise with Shep.

  • A doctor and nurse arrive to take her to an asylum.

  • Stella chooses to disbelieve Blanche’s rape, telling Eunice she “couldn’t go on believing that story.”

  • Blanche leaves with dignity, uttering “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

  • Stanley comforts Stella as she cries, reaffirming brutal realism’s triumph over illusion.

​

Other Details:

  • “Varsouviana Polka” = memory of Allan’s death.

  • Original Broadway Blanche: Jessica Tandy; directed by Elia Kazan.

  • Famous 1951 film version starred Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando (as Stanley).

  • Stanley’s nickname for Blanche: “Tiger—Tiger! Drop the bottle-top!”

  • Blanche’s ex-husband’s suicide occurs after she says, “You disgust me.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Author: Mark Twain

Time period: 1884

Language: English

 

Characters

  • Huckleberry Finn – Narrator and protagonist; a practical, skeptical boy who rejects societal norms and values personal morality; fakes his death and travels down the Mississippi.

  • Jim – Miss Watson’s runaway slave; intelligent, kind, and superstitious; becomes Huck’s moral guide and surrogate father.

  • Tom Sawyer – Huck’s imaginative, romantic friend; obsessed with adventure novels and elaborate schemes; returns near the end to “help” free Jim.

  • Pap Finn – Huck’s abusive, alcoholic father; kidnaps Huck and imprisons him in a cabin; later found dead (his body is the one in the floating house)

  • Widow Douglas – Attempts to “civilize” Huck through religion and manners; more gentle than her sister.

  • Miss Watson – Widow Douglas’s strict, hypocritical sister; owns Jim and plans to sell him “down the river.”

  • Judge Thatcher – Holds Huck’s money ($6,000) in trust; assists the Widow in trying to protect Huck from Pap.

  • The Duke and the Dauphin (King) – Two con men Huck and Jim rescue; pretend to be European nobility; commit multiple scams, including the Wilks fraud.

  • Peter Wilks – Deceased townsman whose inheritance becomes the center of the Duke and Dauphin’s scheme.

  • Mary Jane Wilks – Peter’s kind-hearted niece; Huck confides in her and helps expose the con men.

  • Colonel Grangerford and the Shepherdsons – Feuding Southern families; parody of romanticized honor culture; feud ends in tragedy.

  • Buck Grangerford – Huck’s friend who dies in the family feud.

  • Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps – Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle; mistakenly believe Huck is Tom and hold Jim captive.

  • Aunt Polly – Tom’s guardian; appears at the end to reveal Huck and Tom’s true identities.

 

Summary

  • After The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck lives with Widow Douglas and Miss Watson in St. Petersburg, Missouri.

  • Pap reappears and kidnaps Huck to a cabin across the river.

  • Huck fakes his death using pig’s blood and hides on Jackson’s Island, where he meets runaway slave Jim.

  • Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi River, aiming to reach the Ohio River to freedom.

  • They find a floating house with a dead man inside (later revealed to be Pap).

  • Huck dresses as a girl to gather news and learns there’s a reward for Jim’s capture.

  • They encounter robbers on a wrecked steamboat (the Walter Scott) and barely escape.

  • During a fog, they pass the mouth of the Ohio River and can’t turn back.

  • Huck lies to slave hunters, saying his “Pap” has smallpox, saving Jim.

  • After a steamboat collision, Huck and Jim are separated.

  • Huck stays with the Grangerfords, who feud with the Shepherdsons.

  • The feud erupts after a Grangerford girl elopes with a Shepherdson boy; Huck escapes with Jim after Buck’s death.

  • Huck and Jim rescue two con artists who call themselves the “Duke of Bridgewater” and the “Dauphin (King of France).”

  • The pair stage scams: fake Shakespeare shows, religious fraud, and eventually the Wilks inheritance scheme.

  • Posing as Wilks’s brothers, they trick townsfolk until Huck hides the gold in the coffin and confides in Mary Jane Wilks.

  • The real Wilks brothers arrive; chaos ensues, the con men escape, and Huck rejoins Jim.

  • The Duke and Dauphin sell Jim to the Phelps family, claiming he’s a runaway.

  • Huck finds Jim and is mistaken for Tom Sawyer by Aunt Sally Phelps.

  • Huck goes along with the deception until Tom arrives; Tom pretends to be his own brother Sid.

  • Tom devises an absurd, bookish plan to free Jim, complete with snakes, notes, and digging tunnels.

  • During the escape, Tom is shot; Jim sacrifices his freedom to nurse him back to health.

  • Tom reveals Jim has been free all along—Miss Watson died and freed him in her will.

  • Aunt Polly exposes Huck and Tom’s true identities.

  • Jim confirms the dead man they saw was Pap, freeing Huck from fear of his father.

  • Aunt Sally offers to adopt Huck, but he decides to “light out for the Territory” (head West) to avoid being “sivilized.”

​

Other Details:

  • Opening line: “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

  • Fictional St. Petersburg, based on Hannibal, Missouri (Twain’s hometown).

  • The steamboat wreck is called the Walter Scott.

  • Huck’s alias in several towns: Sarah Williams, George Peters, George Jackson, etc.

  • Jim’s superstition: hair-ball oracle made from an ox’s stomach predicts Huck’s future.

  • Boggs – A drunk shot by Colonel Sherburn, who delivers a speech mocking mob cowardice.

Death of a Salesman​

Author: Arthur Miller

Time period: 1949

Language: English

​

Characters

  • Willy Loman

    • Traveling salesman, delusional, obsessed with being “well-liked”

    • Suffers from flashbacks, hallucinations, and suicidal tendencies

    • Believes success is based on charisma rather than practical work

  • Linda Loman

    • Loyal wife, emotionally stabilizes the household

    • Aware of Willy’s suicidal attempts

    • Protects Willy’s dignity and mediates family conflicts

  • Biff Loman

    • Elder son, former high school football star

    • Traumatized by discovering Willy’s affair in Boston

    • Struggles with identity and rejects Willy’s false dreams

  • Happy Loman

    • Younger son, works in business but is directionless

    • Pursues women and shallow success

    • Continues to live by Willy’s flawed ideals

  • Charley

    • Willy’s neighbor and only friend

    • Financially supports Willy with loans

    • Offers Willy a job that Willy repeatedly refuses

  • Bernard

    • Charley’s son, once mocked by Willy for being studious

    • Grows up to be a successful lawyer heading to argue a Supreme Court case

  • Ben

    • Willy’s older brother, appears in hallucinations

    • Made a fortune in diamond mines in Africa

  • The Woman

    • Willy’s mistress from Boston

    • Represents Willy’s betrayal of his family and Biff’s disillusionment

  • Howard Wagner

    • Willy’s boss, son of Willy’s former employer

    • Fires Willy despite Willy’s loyalty to the company

  • Stanley

    • Waiter at Frank’s Chop House who treats Willy with basic decency

  • Miss Forsythe and Letta

    • Call girls whom Happy flirts with at the restaurant

  • Jenny

    • Charley’s secretary who dislikes Willy’s interruptions

 

Act I 

  • Flute music associated with Willy’s father plays as Willy returns home exhausted from failed sales.

  • Willy contradicts himself about Biff’s character within the first minutes (calling him lazy, then not lazy) showing instability.

  • Linda suggests asking Howard for a New York job to reduce travel (revealing underlying knowledge of Willy’s declining capacity).

  • Willy exhibits auditory hallucinations while in the kitchen; the stage directions specify his speech is partially incoherent.

  • Biff and Happy discuss Willy’s mumbling; both reveal dissatisfaction with their own lives, fantasizing about a ranch in Texas, demonstrating escapist tendencies.

  • Flashback begins abruptly without lighting change, young Biff and Happy wash Willy’s car and admire him.

  • Willy boasts that he will own a bigger business than Charley, predicting $20,000 sales in a week (foreshadowing obsession with insurance payout).

  • Bernard urgently searches for Biff to study math, revealing Biff’s academic trouble even during idealized flashback.

  • Willy dismisses Bernard’s efforts because Bernard is not “well liked,” establishing Willy’s metric for success as charisma-based rather than merit-based.

  • Linda appears in flashback repairing stockings, an object that consistently triggers Willy’s guilt.

  • Willy lies to Linda about sales (says $1,200 when it was $200, including borrowing $100 from Charley).

  • Willy laments appliance payments—specifically mentions refrigerator fan belts and carburetor repairs.

  • Transition to The Woman’s laughter in Willy’s mind; she thanks him for stockings he gave her.

  • Willy’s hallucination collapses; he reacts violently to seeing Linda mending stockings, associating them with his affair.

  • Bernard re-enters, reports Biff stole a football from school, which Willy endorses because coaches admire Biff.

  • Willy expresses regret about not following brother Ben to Alaska and Africa (where Ben “walked into the jungle and walked out rich”).

  • Charley arrives after hearing noise; Willy misrecognizes him as Ben, highlighting merging hallucinations.

  • Willy refuses Charley’s job offer due to pride and delusion that he is already successful.

  • Imaginary Ben enters; recounts their father being a flute-maker who traveled with a wagon carving flutes.

  • Linda reveals Willy’s suicide attempts: car accidents and a rubber hose attached to the gas line (Biff found it).

  • Family tension erupts; Happy proposes a sporting goods business (“Loman Brothers”), which Willy sees as a path to greatness.

​​

Act II 

  • Willy initially appears optimistic while eating Linda’s scrambled eggs.

  • Mentions the new ceiling Linda installed—a symbol of constant house repairs, both literal and psychological.

  • Howard plays his wire recorder, demonstrating generational tech advancement overshadowing Willy’s obsolescence.

  • Willy invokes legendary salesman Dave Singleman, who died “the death of a salesman” at 84 with buyers mourning him.

  • Howard explicitly says “business is business,” directly opposing Willy’s belief that personality guarantees success.

  • Willy is fired, not simply denied a transfer; Howard tells him to take a rest, stripping him of identity.

  • Flashback with Ben: Ben repeatedly offers Willy a timber deal in Alaska; Willy declines due to belief in Biff’s future success in sales.

  • Bernard appears as a Supreme Court-bound lawyer; subtly avoids telling Willy the cause of Biff’s downfall to protect Willy from truth.

  • Bernard’s questioning reveals that after Boston, Biff “gave up,” implying traumatic revelation rather than laziness.

  • Charley again offers Willy a job, Willy refuses again, insists he is “vital in New England.”

  • Willy borrows $50 from Charley despite having just been fired.

  • At Frank’s Chop House, Happy lies to Miss Forsythe that Biff is a football star, inflating family mythology.

  • Biff confesses Bill Oliver did not recognize him; he had only been a shipping clerk, not an executive.

  • Willy drifts into memory fusion; young Bernard enters yelling that Biff failed math.

  • Restaurant scene collapses as hallucination overtakes reality, Ben’s voice emerges negotiating “$20,000 proposition,” establishing suicide plan.

  • Biff storms out; Happy abandons Willy for two call girls, demonstrating complete moral decay.

  • Willy asks Stanley where to buy seeds.

  • Linda rejects flowers Happy offers, signifying the emptiness of their gestures.

  • Biff confronts Willy in garden; Biff’s emotional breakdown temporarily brings Willy clarity (“he cried to me”) Willy interprets this as love and justification for suicide.

​

Requiem (Funeral Scene) 

  • Attendance: only Charley, Bernard, Biff, Happy, and Linda (no buyers, no neighbors, disproving Willy’s belief he was beloved).

  • Charley delivers eulogy arguing that a salesman must “dream” and “ride on a smile,” framing Willy not as foolish but tragic victim of profession.

  • Happy vows to prove Willy did not die in vain.

  • Biff accepts reality, plans to return West, breaking cycle.

  • Linda declares mortgage is paid off—ultimate tragic irony: freedom arrives only in death.

  • Final flute line symbolizes Willy’s father and the lost frontier dream.

Babbitt

Author: Sinclair Lewis

Time period: 1922

Language: English

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Characters

  • George F. Babbitt – A 46-year-old prosperous real estate broker in Zenith, Midwestern city; socially conformist but privately dissatisfied, struggles with middle-class expectations and his desire for rebellion.

  • Myra Babbitt – George’s devoted and conventional wife, who cares for her family and maintains social propriety.

  • Paul Riesling – Babbitt’s close friend, formerly a promising violinist, frustrated with his middle-class life; becomes embroiled in scandal and imprisonment.

  • Zilla Riesling – Paul’s nagging and dissatisfied wife, whose arguments exacerbate Paul’s discontent.

  • Tanis Judique – Attractive widow and Babbitt’s love interest, initially perceived as a “fairy girl,” though ultimately conventional in her own way.

  • Ted, Verona, and Tinka Babbitt – Babbitt’s children; Ted rebels by eloping with Eunice Littlefield.

  • Eunice Littlefield – Ted’s love interest and partner in elopement.

  • Various Zenith socialites – Babbitt’s friends and colleagues who enforce social norms.

  • Zenith strikers – Represent working-class unrest and challenge Babbitt’s conformity.

​

Summary

  • The novel opens in Zenith, showing Babbitt as a middle-class real estate broker enjoying modern comforts yet dissatisfied with life.

  • Babbitt fantasizes about a “fairy girl” and navigates family life with his wife Myra and three children.

  • His friend Paul Riesling, frustrated with social constraints, takes a vacation with Babbitt in Maine, briefly experiencing freedom from middle-class expectations.

  • Upon returning, Riesling’s dissatisfaction escalates; he has an affair, argues with his wife Zilla, shoots her, and is sentenced to three years in prison.

  • Inspired by rebellion, Babbitt begins an affair with Tanis Judique and increasingly questions the conservative values of his social circle.

  • Babbitt’s friends attempt to rein him into conformity; he resists, leading to social alienation and a decline in his business.

  • Myra becomes suspicious, and Babbitt attempts to justify his affair while temporarily embracing a bohemian lifestyle.

  • Babbitt becomes disillusioned with Tanis when he realizes she is conventional, undermining his fantasy of rebellion.

  • Myra falls seriously ill with appendicitis; Babbitt returns to her side, reconciles, and resumes his conventional life, regaining social respectability.

  • Babbitt privately advises his son Ted, who has eloped with Eunice, to pursue personal happiness rather than societal expectations.

  • The novel concludes with Babbitt accepting the limitations of his own life but encouraging the next generation to seek fulfillment on their own terms.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Author: Edward Albee

Time period: 1962

Language: English

​

Characters

  • George – Middle-aged history professor at a small New England college; intelligent, cynical, emotionally scarred; engages in psychological warfare with Martha; feels emasculated by his failures and life disappointments.

  • Martha – George’s wife; daughter of the college president; sharp-tongued, domineering, manipulative; battles George with biting wit and emotional cruelty; frustrated by her unfulfilled life and marriage.

  • Nick – Young biology professor (initially misrepresented as a math professor); ambitious, confident, and naïve; represents youthful optimism but is drawn into George and Martha’s psychological games.

  • Honey – Nick’s wife; sweet, fragile, and somewhat naïve; her personality makes her an easy target for George and Martha’s manipulations.

  • College President – Martha’s father.

  • The Imaginary Son – A fictitious child George and Martha pretend exists.

Summary

​Act I – “Fun and Games”

  • George and Martha return from a party at Martha’s father’s house, arriving at 2 a.m.

  • The young couple, Nick and Honey, arrive expecting a polite visit but are met by George and Martha, who treat the guests as pawns in their mutual battle.

  • The couple engages in barbs, humiliation, and manipulations; Martha attempts to provoke George with sexual and emotional taunts.

  • George subtly undermines Martha’s authority while feigning compliance.

  • Nick’s naivety and Honey’s passivity allow George and Martha to explore jealousy, control, and humiliation dynamics.

  • George pretends to misunderstand academic titles (calling Nick a math professor) to unsettle him.

Act II – “Walpurgisnacht”

  • Games escalate into crueler psychological manipulations.

  • George and Martha attack Nick and Honey, coaxing out secrets, lies, and insecurities.

  • Martha flaunts her power and sexuality; George engages in intellectual cruelty.

  • Tensions reveal the fissures in Nick and Honey’s own marriage: Honey’s fears, Nick’s ambitions, and moral compromises.

  • The act’s title references a witches’ sabbath.

  • George’s references to the “son” begin to surface as a fantasy used to manipulate Martha and inflict pain.

  • Drinking makes guests psychologically entangled in George and Martha’s patterns of domination and submission.

Act III – “The Exorcism”

  • George forces Martha to confront the truth about their childless marriage and the fictitious son.

  • Nick and Honey are forced to face their own disillusionments; they exit, shaken by the destructive games.

  • George and Martha attempt to reconcile, understanding the intensity of their dependence on each other.

  • George and Martha remain bound together.

Howl

Author: Allen Ginsberg

Time period: 1956

Language: English

​

  • The speaker laments the destruction of the most visionary and creative members of his generation:

    “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.”

  • He portrays an America where conformity, materialism, and mainstream morality crush freedom and creativity, reducing artists and thinkers to “angelheaded hipsters” and “madmen”.

  • References psychiatric institutions, urban decay, drug use, and sexuality ("I'm with you in Rockland")

  • Closing lines: “Holy! Holy! Holy! / These are the souls of the lost generation, / angels and saints of the city.”

  • The poem critiques postwar American materialism while elevating the Beat community as visionary outsiders.

  • Early characterization: “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection.”

  • “who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats."

  • “a sphinx of cement and aluminum” describes the Canaanite deity Moloch (Moloch repeatedly invoked)

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Author: Stephen Crane

Time period: 1893

Language: English

​

Characters

  • Maggie Johnson – Young, physically attractive, and morally innocent; ultimately destroyed by poverty, family dysfunction, and predatory men.

  • Jimmie Johnson – Maggie’s older brother; aggressive, cynical; participates in street fights; morally compromised despite feigned outrage at Maggie’s fall.

  • Mary Johnson – Maggie’s mother; drunken, vicious, moralizing; alternates between rage and alcoholic stupor.

  • Pete – A young man who seduces Maggie with his bravado and apparent sophistication; ultimately abandons her for another woman.

  • Tommie Johnson – Maggie’s younger brother; dies young.

  • Nellie – Scheming, worldly woman who lures Pete away from Maggie.

  • Pete’s friends / neighborhood youth – Appear in street fights and social scenes; provide context for Bowery life.

​

Summary

  •  Jimmie leads a street fight in New York City’s Bowery; rescued by Pete. Maggie and her siblings are introduced alongside their dysfunctional, drunken mother and father.

  • Father and mother alternate between violence, drinking, and neglect. Children are terrorized; father and Tommie die early in the narrative.

  • Maggie remains hopeful and naïve despite poverty; she is seduced by Pete, whose charm and bourgeois pretensions promise escape from her harsh environment. They begin a sexual relationship; Maggie leaves home, provoking family scandal.

  • Pete leaves Maggie for Nellie; Maggie attempts to return home but is rejected. Meanwhile, Jimmie is revealed to have seduced and abandoned girls himself.

  • Maggie becomes a streetwalker, facing rejection, despair, and social ostracism. Pete also suffers a brief fall, abandoned by Nellie while drunk in a bar.

  • Maggie dies alone; Mary stages a melodramatic mourning scene, ending with irony: “I’ll fergive her!”

Slaughterhouse Five

Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Time period: 1969

Language: English

​

Characters

  • Billy Pilgrim – Protagonist; becomes “unstuck in time,” traveling nonlinearly through his life and observing past, present, and future events; experiences trauma, alien abduction, and war.

  • Valencia Merble Pilgrim – Billy’s wealthy, obese wife; dies accidentally of carbon monoxide poisoning.

  • Tralfamadorians – Two-foot-tall, toilet-plunger-shaped aliens who abduct Billy and teach him their four-dimensional view of time, emphasizing that all moments exist simultaneously.

  • Montana Wildhack – Movie actress abducted to Tralfamadore; becomes Billy’s mate in the Tralfamadorian zoo.

  • Kilgore Trout – Obscure science-fiction writer whose novels influence Billy’s perception of life and time.

  • Billy’s father – Dies in a hunting accident before Billy ships overseas.

  • Billy’s children – His daughter and son; she becomes frustrated with his eccentric recounting of time travel.

  • Fellow soldiers / POWs – Shared experiences in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Dresden; provide context for the horrors of war.

  • German captors / Allied soldiers – Facilitate Billy’s POW experiences, work assignments, and survival.

 

Summary

  • Billy is born in 1922 in Ilium, New York; a weak and odd child who trains as a chaplain’s assistant before being drafted into WWII.

  • Experiences the death of his father and later participation in the Battle of the Bulge.

  • Billy becomes unstuck in time, witnessing all moments of his life out of chronological order, including future and past events.

  • Captured behind German lines, Billy is transported to POW camps in Germany.

  • While in Dresden, he survives the firebombing in a meat locker beneath a slaughterhouse while tens of thousands die.

  • Forced to excavate corpses afterward, his trauma is compounded by horror and helplessness.

  • Returns to Ilium, finishes optometry school, and marries Valencia.

  • Lives a prosperous suburban life but suffers from mental breakdowns and shock treatments.

  • Introduced to Kilgore Trout’s science-fiction, which shapes his metaphysical outlook.

  • Kidnapped by Tralfamadorians, taken to their planet, and placed in a zoo with Montana Wildhack.

  • Learns their philosophy: all points in time exist simultaneously; death is only a moment, not an end.

  • Observes life and death with detachment, understanding the phrase “So it goes” as a refrain throughout the novel.

  • Survives a plane crash on the way to a conference; Valencia dies accidentally shortly afterward.

  • Shares his knowledge on a radio show and with his family, predicting his own death in 1976 by assassination, experiencing the violet hum of death before time-jumping again.

  • Continues to live disjointed between war trauma, suburban life, and Tralfamadorian philosophy.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Time period: 1940

Language: English

​

Characters:

  • Robert Jordan – American dynamiter fighting with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War; idealistic, courageous, and committed to his mission.

  • Maria – Young Spanish woman who was previously raped by Fascists; becomes Robert Jordan’s lover and emotional anchor.

  • Pilar – Strong, pragmatic, and moral leader among the guerrilleros; commands respect and often guides Robert Jordan.

  • Pablo – Pilar’s partner and initial leader of the guerrilla band; cowardly and self-serving, occasionally sabotages the mission.

  • Anselmo – Loyal elderly guide who assists Robert Jordan and serves as a surrogate father figure.

  • Agustín, Rafael, Fernando, Primitivo, Andrés, Eladio – Guerrilleros in Pablo and Pilar’s band with varying degrees of courage and loyalty.

  • El Sordo – Leader of a neighboring guerrilla band, ultimately killed along with his men by Fascist planes.

  • Karkov – Russian journalist and Robert Jordan’s friend who helps navigate political and military complications.

  • General Golz – Republican commander overseeing the larger offensive.

  • André Marty – Republican politician who mistakenly arrests Andrés and other couriers.

​

Summary

  • Opens in May 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Robert Jordan, an American fighting for the Republicans, is tasked with destroying a Fascist-controlled bridge behind enemy lines.

  • Guided by Anselmo, Jordan reaches a guerrilla camp led by Pablo and Pilar, meeting the other members of the band and Maria, with whom he quickly falls in love.

  • Conflicts arise as Pablo resists participation, at times fleeing with explosives, while Pilar organizes the group to support the mission. Robert Jordan considers killing Pablo but ultimately refrains.

  • Jordan and Maria’s relationship develops; their intimacy is marked by repeated references to the earth “moving” during lovemaking, symbolizing passion and life amid war.

  • Robert Jordan scouts and coordinates with El Sordo, but Fascist planes bomb El Sordo’s camp, killing him and his men, showing the war’s futility.

  • Amid political obstacles, delays, and betrayals, Robert Jordan proceeds with the mission. The guerrillas plant explosives, destroy the bridge, but Anselmo is killed, and several guerrilleros die in the retreat.

  • Robert Jordan is wounded, trapped, and left behind as Pablo and Pilar retreat with Maria. Facing Fascists alone, he reflects on life, courage, and love, prepared to die but resolute in his ideals.

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