full title · Fahrenheit 451

author · Ray Bradbury

type of work · Novel

genre · Science fiction

language · English

time and place written · 1950–1953, Los Angeles, California

date of first publication · 1953 (a shorter version entitled “The Fireman” published 1951 in Galaxy Science Fiction)

publisher · Ballantine Books

narrator · Third-person, limited omniscient. Follows Montag’s point of view, often articulating his interior monologues

climax · Montag’s murder of Beatty

protagonist · Montag

antagonist · Beatty, but also society in general

setting (time) · Sometime in the twenty-first century; there have been two atomic wars since 1990

setting (place) · In and around an unspecified city

point of view · Montag’s

falling action · Montag’s trip out of the city into the country

tense · Past, with occasional transitions into present tense during Montag’s interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness passages

tone · Foreboding and menacing, disoriented, poetic, bitterly satirical

themes · Censorship, knowledge versus ignorance

motifs · Paradoxes, animals and nature, religion, television and radio

symbols · Fire, blood, the Electric-Eyed Snake, the hearth, the salamander, the phoenix, the sieve and the sand, Denham’s Dentifrice, the dandelion, mirrors

full title · Lolita

author · Vladimir Nabokov

type of work · Novel

genre · Postmodern novel; tragicomedy

language · English

time and place written · 1949–1955, New York

date of first publication · 1955

publisher · Olympia Press, Paris

narrator · Humbert Humbert narrates the novel from his prison cell, approximately five years after the events he describes. The foreword to the novel is narrated by John Ray, Jr., Ph.D. in 1955, three years after the deaths of Humbert and Lolita.

point of view · Humbert narrates his account of his affair with Lolita Haze in the first person, focusing only on his own thoughts and emotions.

tone · Darkly comic; sly; intellectual; alternating between bemused weariness and sweeping romanticism

tense · Humbert Humbert describes the majority of the events in the past tense, but he frames his account with passages of present tense narration.

setting (time) · 1947–1952

setting (place) · Initially the South of France and unnamed locations in Europe, then all over the United States

protagonist · Humbert Humbert

major conflict · The primary conflicts in the novel are between Humbert Humbert and society, which disapproves of both incest and pedophilia, and between Humbert Humbert and Clare Quilty, who competes with Humbert for Lolita’s affections.

rising action · Humbert takes Lolita on the road, in an effort to control her behavior and cement his possession of her. By traveling, he hopes to hide his and Lolita’s identities—and relationship—thereby avoiding society’s disapproval and eluding his rival, Clare Quilty.

climax · Humbert’s plan fails when Lolita escapes him, running off with Clare Quilty after a brief stay in the hospital.

falling action · Humbert spends the next several years trailing Lolita and attempting to exact his revenge on Quilty.

themes · The power of language; the dispiriting incompatibility of European and American cultures; the inadequacy of psychiatry; the alienation caused by exile

motifs · Butterflies; doubles; games

symbols · The theater; prison

Full title The Centaur

Author: John Updike

First Published: 1963

Type of Plot: Mythic novel

Time of Work: Monday morning to Thursday morning during the second week of January, 1947

Setting: Olinger, Pennsylvania, and a farm outside Olinger near Firetown

Principal Characters: George Caldwell (Chiron), Peter Caldwell (Prometheus), Cassie Caldwell (Ceres), Pop Cramer (Kronos), Al Hummel (Hephaestus), Louis M. Zimmerman (Zeus), Doc Appleton (Apollo), Vera Hummel (Venus)

Genres: Long fiction, Mythological literature, Magical Realism

rising action ·

Themes: Teaching or teachers, Family or family life, United States or Americans, Adolescence, 1940’s, High schools or high school students, Sacrifice

Locales: Pennsylvania

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1808