Novels

In the following essay, Tharp takes issue with simplistic critical interpretations of Willow Springs as a “utopian universe,” pointing out the complexities and problems associated with life on the island. Despite these difficulties, she argues, Mama Day constitutes “a road map for an alternative civilization” that offers “the opportunity for mutual support and personal integrity.”

In the following essay, Paterson examines the thematic contrast between New York and Willow Springs, the two principal settings of Mama Day. Paterson identifies New York as the seat of the dominant American culture, which she characterizes as Eurocentric, profit-driven, and individualistic. By contrast, she suggests, Willow Springs represents the survival of an agrarian, community-centered African culture that has been rejected by the mainstream.

In the following essay, Lamothe investigates the opposing notions of cultural rootedness and modern alienation as embodied by Cocoa's relationship to Willow Springs and George's relationship to the mainland in Mama Day.

In this program, one of the most astute observers of contemporary African American life discusses the value and difficulty of maintaining an African American identity in a world dominated by whites, urging viewers "to celebrate voraciously that which is yours." The breadth of her vision—from rural South to urban ghetto to the black middle class—is revealed as she reads from The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, and Mama Day, in the last of these calling upon an urbanized boy to look to his African American past for strength. (22 minutes)

Though critics have been most attracted by the sport of potential influence, in the following I argue that there are other and more interesting grounds for studying Nabokov's reflections on Kafka and that these are to be found in Nabokov's singular interpretation of The Metamorphosis and what that interpretation has to say about his rules for good reading and good writing.

In the following essay, Ben-Ephraim demonstrates how Kafka both builds up and deconstructs the traditional pattern of allegory in his The Metamorphosis.

In the following essay, Ryan utilizes the eastern philosophy Samsara to explore suffering, death, and rebirth in "The Metamorphosis," and ultimately offers a new interpretation of it.

In the following essay, Barry offers a summary of critical scholarship about the significance and structure of Kafka’s use of metaphor in The Metamorphosis. Barry seeks to synthesize several of these analyses, linking the broader psychoanalytical undertones of Freudian interpretations with the post-structuralist concepts of Lacanian and Derridean philosophy.

In this essay, Upstone analyzes Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children as a postcolonial fiction indicative of a transition in the representation of domestic space, from the idea of home as a metaphor for the colonial project to the idea of home as a politicized dwelling where the boundaries between public and private space become blurred. Upstone considers the implications of the postcolonial model for more fluid male and female gender roles; she uses the term magical realism to refer to literary strategies that make of the home a place for subverting the colonial system.

Post-colonial writers like Rushdie use history as a subject for their fiction. Reclaiming history and retaining certain memories are important for the post-colonial condition. In fact, it is very difficult to draw a line of demarcation between reality and imagination. In Midnight's Children, Saleem Sinai, the protagonist, claims he is central to India and India's history. But the novel is not merely about his story. Saleem's version of hi(story) comes through his own views which he thinks to be authentic. Rushdie depicts an India that is completely diverse where there is no coherent center. India is multiple, fluid and complex and can only be imagined through fragmented memories and histories. The open-endedness of historical 'truth' is the central issue of the novel where the reader is taken to see a nation that is partly brought into existence through a collective fantasy/ imagination. This paper tries to explore how Rushdie in his landmark work, by blending fiction, politics, magic and memory, has taken the reader to a world of imagination where reality appears to be fiction and vice versa.

In this essay, Barrows discusses of the function of time in Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children.

Roache has written this paper "out of the conviction that "How 'Bigger' was Born" merits examination as an important biographical and critical statement in its own right, and that such an examination is necessary to its use in understanding both the novel and the development of Wright's career."

"CRITICS OF RICHARD WRIGHT'S Native Son have paid much attention to the novel's environment and its power to influence the experiences of those who inhabit it. Understood as the arena in which the consequences of cultural, economic, and ideological practices become manifest, the environment is supposed to offer insight into the lives of individuals within it. Louis Graham, writing in 1972 about what he terms the "white self-image conflict" in Native Son, begins his essay by stating that "there is no question that Richard Wright's Native Son is Bigger Thomas' novel and that Wright places major emphasis on the social, cultural, and economic influences in the development of Bigger's character" ("White Self-Image" 19). Various elements of Bigger's environment--understood as offering insight into the shaping of his internal state of mind or his "character"--have remained a point of focus. More recent claims that Bigger is "a tragic victim of implacable social forces" (Goldstein 120), or that "it is space itself which shapes and limits his agency" (Soto 26) are representative of the tendency to emphasize the external environment's role in shaping Bigger as an individual (or as a stereotype). (1) And while readings of the novel's environment are crucial for understanding Bigger as well as the novel's other characters, the assumption that Bigger is shaped (always in a limiting, rather than productive way) by his environment squelches the possibility of understanding a more reciprocal relationship between Bigger and the world in which he lives."

"Native Son" was called by Ralph Ellison "the first philosophical novel by an American Negro." Wright published his first story at age 15. H.L. Mencken's writing inspired Wright. Winning a writing prize launched Wright into the literary world. (12 minutes)

In the following essay, Grebstein analyzes Hemingway's craft in The Old Man and the Sea, commenting on the structure, symbolic patterns, language, and narrative technique in the novella.

Hemingway often used expatriation as a literary device, yet critics have overlooked the fact that Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea is an expatriate. Born in Spain's Canary Islands, Santiago moved to Cuba as a young man; this circumstance has a significant impact on his social condition. The expatriate protagonist is isolated from his countrymen, ridiculed by his adopted community, and a failure at his chosen profession. To remedy feelings of loss, the old man reminisces about his homeland and adopts Cuban behaviors in language, sport, religion, alcohol consumption, and fishing, among other things. The purpose of his actions is to pass into Cuban society and achieve a new sense of identity. This article uses an analysis of the Santiago's Spanish background and Cuban cultural rites to elucidate how his expatriation affects his actions, self-image, and perspective on his community.

In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway was profoundly affected by the Afro-Cuban religion of Santería and sympathetic to the idea that the sea was protected by saints and orishas. Secular faiths carry no remit in the novella and those who sail the Strait of Florida without ritual acknowledgement or acts of propitiation run the risk of being punished. Such is the fate of Santiago. His faith in baseball and his allegiance to the New York Yankees is an illustration of how mass culture was used by the United States to win Latin American hearts and minds in the post-war era and of the way such culture functioned as an instrument of social control in the fight against Communism.

A literary criticism of the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez is presented. It is suggested the novel be viewed within the context of the known history of the American continents, including their myth and ritual. It is the author's opinion that previous reviews have held western biases, while she finds the first character described in "One Hundred Years" to bear resemblance to Bochica, the sun god of the native Chibchas of Colombia.

Márquez was greatly influenced by his grandmother’s story-telling ability, and was highly indebted to the socio-political history of Latin America, particularly Colombia. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, he wants to reconstruct the lost world of childhood by using magical realism which gives expression to the world-view of a rural people who live in isolation from modern world. By retelling the official history from the perspective of the oppressed, he reveals the fact that history is never factual and impartial but serves the interest of those who write it. Through the banana company massacre and the subsequent hide and seek over the number of dead workers, Márquez exposes the way official history becomes fabricated and distorted by authorities, and fails to provide the original occurrences. He was disgusted with the political violence and civil wars which had distraught people; he was also against capitalism, scientific and technological inventions, and so-called modernization, which are the means through which foreign culture brings corruption and brutality, dominates, exploits and oppresses the natives, and threatens the native culture and identity. By employing magical realism, he was able to recreate Colombian history to protest against the way capitalism dominated the socio-political and economic structure of the region.

This major production delves into the world of One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Autumn of the Patriarch—the world of García Márquez—where historical riots and levitating grandmothers appear to be equally real (or unreal). Shot on the Colombian coast in Aracataca (Macondo), the Banana Zone, Ciénaga, and Barranquilla, and incorporating rare archival footage, the program features the author himself and the people of whom he writes. (60 minutes)

As a great romantic novelist in American literature in the 19th century and a central figure in the American Renaissance, Nathaniel Hawthorne is outstanding for his skillful employment of symbolism and powerful psychological insight. The Scarlet Letter, which is considered to be the greatest accomplishment of American short story and is often viewed as the first American symbolic and psychological novel, makes Nathaniel Hawthorne win incomparable position in American literature. With a brief introduction into The Scarlet Letter and a brief study on the two literary terms, i.e. symbol and symbolism, the paper attempts to expound Hawthorne's skillful employment of symbolism in his masterpiece through the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the main characters' name in this great novel.

A literary criticism of the Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter" is presented. It discusses the symbolism of the Black Man, who never appears in the story but to whom various characters refer. The author sees him as the outsider. He carries a book and a pen and allows people to sign the book with their blood. They thus sign away their association with the community and commit to making themselves happy at its expense. Hawthorne thus shows the danger of breaking the laws of society.

Pregnant as the result of an adulterous affair, Hester Prynne pays for her sin publicly while her unnamed lover wrestles with his conscience in private. But Hester transforms her shameful badge—the letter A sewn from red cloth—into a gorgeous emblem of honor as she earns both spiritual redemption and the respect of her Puritan peers. This production of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter was called “A completely faithful, totally fascinating dramatization” by the Los Angeles Times. With Meg Foster as Hester Prynne, John Heard as Reverend Dimmesdale, and Kevin Conway as Roger Chillingworth. (4 hours)

In this paper, I explore the African normative idea of personhood as a philosophical theme in Things Fall Apart. I do this in the context of communalism, which involves the mutual dependence between individuals and community.

Chinua Achebe is an African postcolonial writer. His novel Things Fall Apart is one of the best postcolonial novels and has the status of an African classic piece of writing. It has all the major characteristics of a postcolonial discourse.

In this foundational modern African novel, Chinua Achebe's story follows the lives of people trying to understand which belief systems deserve their loyalty. The protagonist, Okonkwo is a tribal leader who battles neighboring villages, the English, and his own demons in early colonial Nigeria. The perspectives of readers from around the world reveal the novel's universal themes. Cast members include playwright and professor, Tess Onwueme and theater director Chuck Mike. (approx. 26 minutes)

In the following excerpt, Ciuba examines how most of the characters in Wise Blood are unable to look beyond the surface of people and things. Only Hazel Motes, who himself begins by judging people at "face value," learns how to look beyond the literal and thus understand the divine nature of the universe.

Flannery O'Connor is often likened to Faulkner for her portrayal of the character and lifestyle of the South, Kafka for her fascination with the bizarre, and Beckett for her dark humor-comparisons that underscore the fact that her voice has a unique place in the canon of American literature. This program provides a biographical sketch of O'Connor that illuminates her efforts to come to terms with what she perceived as the fundamental absurdity of the human condition while never shying away from incendiary social issues. Readings from Wise Blood, "The Displaced Person," "The River," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," and "Revelation" are included. (21 minutes)

Flannery O'Connor gives a "steely-eyed" look at the South. As a young writer, she had confidence in her artistic vision. She is best known for "Wise Blood." Rural central Georgia was her fictional landscape. She takes a hard look at the human capacity for self-deception. (approx. 10 minutes)