Though the reader can expect to find some shocking, yet interesting facts about the meat packing industry in this time period (early 1900's), Sinclair may have had reasons other than displaying the truth behind meat packing for writing the novel. ... Sinclair has his main character, Jurgis Rudkus, put through a series of mis-fortunate events throughout the novel, most of which are a result of a moral-lacking economic system. ... Because The Novel is based in the industrial, early 1900's and Sinclair's main point is to show the trials of working men, the industrial environment ...

• Word Count: 438
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In both novels, the two orphans search for their identities and position within society. ... At the beginning of the novel, like Pip, Jane is a child. ... In the course of the novel, all of these things change. ... This is a development confirmed in the novel by her marriage to Rochester and her giving birth to her own children. ... Materially and socially, Jane has moved a considerable distance from her situation at the beginning of the novel. ...

• Word Count: 1152
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Most of the population of Latin America, as well as all of the characters in the novel, belong to one of these two classes. ... Simply by making class struggle a major theme of the novel, The House of the Spirits supports the view of the peasants. ... Jean de Satigny also becomes a representation of a foreign power throughout the novel. ... Alba in the end of the novel suffers many tortures however, she is also supported by a community of women prisoners. ... Furthermore, Allende leaves the novel by tying it into the beginning, by stating, "It begins like this: Barrabas came to us by sea" ...

• Word Count: 1038
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Wells' 1895 science fiction novel The Time Machine is a cautionary tale of what will befall mankind if capitalism continues to exploit workers for the benefits of the rich. ... The novel demonstrates the true concept behind Darwin's theory: species do not necessarily progress toward perfection over time, but instead adapt to their environments over time. ... While this fictional future may appear as an exaggeration of nineteenth-century London, the novel insinuates where the human race is heading. ... Although technology is important to this novel and is correlated with the future, ...

• Word Count: 1341
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Scott Fitzgerald's critically acclaimed novel, presents the American dream as an illusion which can never be achieved, and according to recent events in America, Fitzgerald is evidently correct. ... This delusion of the American Dream is the paramount theme in The Great Gatsby, and it is the main message Fitzgerald attempts to convey in his saddening, but insightful novel. ... The issue of meritocracy is also prevalent in this novel. When Daisy confesses to Gatsby that she can't say that she "never loved Tom"(133), it unveils how meritocracy isn't existent at all ...

• Word Count: 1239
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Catherine and Heathcliff's passion for one another seems to be the centre of Wuthering Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novel's plot. ...

• Word Count: 268
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Although May Sinclair's focus in the novel is upon Psychoanalysis and the repression of sexuality, the actions, virtues and social systems within this text are relevant to Marxist literary criticism. ... This "chant" (which appears no less than fifteen times throughout the novel) is seen by Harriett as the moral embodiment of all what her parents thought and did. ... The economic factors throughout the novel are prevalent. ... In the novel, it is clear that the book is critical of the social order of the capitalist system, but it is hypercritical of Hilton to suggest ideas such as these w...

• Word Count: 1734
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the novel The Kite Runner, by describing how Pashtuns characters behaved and how they considered Hazara characters, Khaled Hosseini shows that class structure has a big impact on relationships, and that difference of class makes it very difficult to create friendships and maintain family ties due to a sense of superiority, public image and prejudice even if class structure disappears. ... In some parts of this novel, readers can know how much Baba cared about Hassan. ... But, in the novel, reality was that Hazara people were likely to be discriminated by Pashtuns, and they were forced to b...

• Word Count: 1558
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Affluent poetry and novels combined the mystery and awe of real life with charming blissful words. ... The Victorian era was the great age of the English novel-realistic, which was long, thickly plotted and crowded with characters. ... The novels of Charles Dickens, full to overflowing with drama, humour, and an endless variety of vivid characters and plot complications, nonetheless spare nothing in their portrayal of what urban life was like for all classes. Emily Bronte's (see Bronte, family) single novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), is a unique masterpiece propelled by a vision of elemen...

• Word Count: 1029
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Another distinguishing characteristic of the Victorian period which is evident in the novel is the increase in marriage rate. ... In the novel, Dickens reveals that his own mother and her new born child passed away as he attended school probably as a result of post birth complications. ... At the time of the novel writing, a killer cholera epidemic was reported in England which could be another reason why the novel contains such a big number of characters who die in the course of the character's narration. ...

• Word Count: 1075
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

An Integration of Mathematical and Multicultural Viewpoints Flatland, a novel written in the early 1900s by mathematician, social philosopher and head of the City of London School Edwin Abbot Abbot, is a wonderful novel that, on the surface, is a cute little story about some geometric shapes who live in a two dimensional world called Flatland, but underneath is full of strong statements about racism and social structure - gender equity in particular. ... Thomas Banchoff, who wrote the introduction for the newest re-publication of Flatland said this about the novel, "Abbott was a social ref...

• Word Count: 1407
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

"2 Her novels raise central matters within her society, often challenging their foundation and meaning through her portrayal of them. ... Through an examination of her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, and with reference to her later 1815 novel Emma, it is evident that Austen's attention to women's roles and social order broke conventional ideas of class hierarchy, the ideal woman and the heroine. ... In light of this, David Herbert's assertion that Austen studies "personal values, virtues and deficiencies within her 'set,'" but neglects to "questi...

• Word Count: 5516
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a traditional prose fiction novel, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, a graphic novel, explore the conflict between personal and public values of their respective main characters and intolerant societies using similar techniques despite their different textual forms. ... A contrast between the two texts is that Marji challenges her family's ideals, whereas in To Kill a Mockingbird Scout gradually adopts her father's doctrine throughout the novel. ...

• Word Count: 1031
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a traditional prose fiction novel, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, a graphic novel, explore the conflict between personal and public values of their respective main characters and intolerant societies using similar techniques despite their different textual forms. ... A contrast between the two texts is that Marji challenges her family's ideals, whereas in To Kill a Mockingbird Scout gradually adopts her father's doctrine throughout the novel. ...

• Word Count: 1031
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The relationship between these two parties is essential to outlining the themes within each novel. ... Sykes for instance, starts out as a cruel, sadistic character, and remains that way until his death at the end of the novel. ...

• Word Count: 726
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In "Candide", the novel ridicules a number of Enlightenment Period philosophies, it showed how the Enlightenment was nothing like a uniform movement. ... In the novel "Candide" is not free from the biases and "unenlightened" thoughts that the revolutionary movement in France was based upon. ...

• Word Count: 1280
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Jane Austen's 1815 classic novel 'Emma' appropriated into Amy Heckerling's 1995 film 'Clueless', provides an insight on the drastic changes in societal values shaped by their changing contexts. ... Throughout the novel 'Emma', Austen critiques Regency society's expectation for women to be married to a man of equal or higher status and wealth. ...

• Word Count: 1249
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the Henry James novel, Daisy Miller, the main character, Daisy Miller, is American and is at odds with European societal norms. James' novel is a "study" of the character Daisy Miller, as seen through the perspective of the character Winterbourne, an American European gentleman. ...

• Word Count: 1531
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Literature itself has no defined meaning. In the beginning introduction of Literary Theory: An Introduction, Eagleton states numerous definitions of literature to prove the point that there has yet to be one specific definition. Eagleton's definition of literature involves a text that is written in...

• Word Count: 2612
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Transitions can be a difficult process with many obstacles to overcome, but ultimately the result is worth it. Transitions have obstacles in differing the individuals journey in being able to transition effectively which allows them to see themselves and the world around them in a new perspective. B...

• Word Count: 1674
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate