English Literature books summary

for it. Dorian tells him not to shoot it, but Geoffrey shoots anyway.

Instead of the rabbit falling, a man who was hidden by the bush falls. The

two men think it was one of the beaters (the men hired to beat the bushes

so the wildlife will run and the hunters will be able to shoot at it).

Geoffrey is annoyed at the man for getting in front of the gunfire. Lord

Henry comes over and tells Dorian they should call off the shooting for the

day to avoid appearing callous. Dorian is awfully upset by the shooting.

Lord Henry consoles him, saying the man’s death is of no consequence,

though it will cause Geoffrey some inconvenience. Dorian thinks of it as a

bad omen. He thinks he will be shot. Lord Henry laughs his fears away,

telling him there is no such thing as destiny.

They arrive at the house and Dorian is greeted by the gardener who has

a note from the Duchess. He receives it and walks on. They discuss her.

Lord Henry says the Duchess loves him. Dorian says he wishes he could love

but that he’s too concentrated on himself to love anyone else. He says he

wants to take a cruise on his yacht where he will be safe. As they talk,

the Duchess approaches them.

She is concerned bout her brother. Lord Henry says it would be much

more interesting if he had murdered the man on purpose. He says he wishes

he knew someone who had committed murder. Dorian blanches and they express

concern for his health. He says he will go lie down to rest.

Lord Henry and the Duchess continue their talk. He asks her if she is

in love with Dorian. She avoids answering. He asks if her husband will

notice anything. She says her husband never notices and she wishes he would

sometimes.

Upstairs in his room, Dorian lies on his sofa almost in a faint. At

five o’clock he calls for a servant and tells him to prepare his things for

his leave-taking. He writs a note to Lord Henry asking him to entertain his

guests. Just as he is ready to leave, the head keeper is announced. He says

the man who was shot was not one of the beaters, but seems to have been a

sailor. No one knew the man. Dorian is wildly excited at the thought hat it

might be James Vane. He rushes out to go and see the body. When the cloth

is lifted from the face, he cries out in joy because it is the face of

James Vane. He rides home with tears of joy knowing he’s safe.

CHAPTER 19

Lord Henry tells Dorian he doesn’t believe him when he says he is now

going to be good. He says Dorian is already perfect and shouldn’t change at

al. Dorian insists that he has done many terrible things and has decided to

stop that and become a good person. He says he’s been staying in the

country lately and has resolved to change. Lord Henry says anyone can be

good in the country. Dorian says he has recently done a good thing. He

wooed a young girl as beautiful as Sibyl Vane was and loved her. He has

been going to see her several times a week all month. They were planning to

run away together and suddenly he decided to leave her with her innocence.

Lord Henry says the novelty of the emotion must have given Dorian as much

pleasure as he used to get in stealing the innocence of girls. Dorian begs

Henry not to make jokes about his reform. Lord Henry asks him if he thinks

this girl will now ever be able to be happy after she was loved by someone

as beautiful and graceful as he is. Now she will be forever dissatisfied

with love. He wonders if the girl will even commit suicide.

Dorian begs Henry to stop making fun of him. He tells him he wants to

be better than he has been in life. After a while, he brings up the subject

of Basil’s disappearance. He asks Henry what people are saying about it and

wonders if anyone thinks foul play was involved. Henry makes light of it.

He imagines that Basil fell off a bus into the Seine and drowned. Dorian

asks Henry what he would think if he said he had killed Basil. Henry laughs

at the idea, saying Dorian is too delicate for something as gross as

murder.

Lord Henry says he hates the fact that Basil’s art had become so poor

in the last years of his life. After Dorian stopped sitting for him, his

art became trite.

Lord Henry begs Dorian to play Chopin for him and talk to him. Dorian

begins playing and remembers a line from Hamlet that reminds him of the

portrait Basil painted of him: "Like the painting of a sorrow,/ A face

without a heart." He repeats the line over again thinking how much it suits

the portrait Basil painted of him.

Lord Henry thinks of a line he heard when he passed by a preacher in

the park last Sunday: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world

and lose his own soul?" Dorian is shocked at the saying and wonders why

Henry would ask him this question. Henry laughs it off and moves on to

another topic.

Henry urges Dorian to stop being so serious. He tells him he looks

better than he ever has and wonders what his secret is for warding off old

age. He revels in the exquisite life Dorian has led and wishes he could

change places with him. He tells Dorian his life has been a work of art.

Dorian stops playing and tells Lord Henry that if he knew what he had done

in life, he would turn from him.

Lord Henry urges Dorian to come to the club with him. He wants to

introduce him to Lord Poole, Bournemouth’s eldest son who has been

imitating Dorian and wants to meet him terribly. He then suggests that

Dorian come to his place the next day and meet Lady Baranksome who wants to

consult him about some tapestry she is going to buy. He asks Dorian why he

no longer sees the Duchess and guesses that the Duchess is too clever, one

never liking being around clever women. Finally, Dorian leaves after

promising to come back later.

CHAPTER 20

The night is beautiful. Dorian walks home from Lord Henry feeling good

about himself. He passes some y young men who whisper his name. He no

longer feels the thrill he used to feel when he is spoken of with such

reverence by young men. He wonders if Lord Henry is right, that he can

never change. He wishes he had never prayed that the portrait bear the

burden of his age. He knows that his downfall has come because he has never

had to live with the consequences of his actions.

He gets home and looks in a mirror. He feels sickened by the idea that

youth spoiled his soul. He throws down the mirror smashing it on the floor.

He tries not to think of the past. Nothing can change it. He knows Alan

Campbell died without telling anyone of Dorian’s secret. He doesn’t even

feel too badly about the death of Basil. He doesn’t forgive Basil for

painting the portrait that ruined his life. He just wants to live a new

life.

He thinks of Hetty Merton and he wonders if the portrait upstairs has

changed because of his good deed toward her. He gets the lamp and rushes up

the stairs, hopeful that the portrait will have already begun to change

back to beauty. When he gets there, he is horrified to see that the

portrait looks even worse. Now the image has an arrogant sneer on its face.

More blood has appeared on its hands and even on its feet.

Dorian wonders what he should do. He wonders if he will have to

confess the murder before he will be free of the guilt of it. He doesn’t

want to confess because he doesn’t want to be put in jail.

He wonders if the murder will follow him all his life. Finally he

decides to destroy the portrait. He finds the knife he used to kill Basil.

He rushes to the portrait and stabs at it.

Downstairs on the street below, two men are passing by when they hear

a loud scream. They rush for a policeman who knocks on the door, but no one

comes. The men ask the policeman whose house it is. When they hear it is

Dorian Gray’s, they sneer and walk away. Inside, the servants rush up to

the room from whence the sound came. They try the door but it’s locked. Two

of them go around by way of the roof to get in through the window. When

they get inside, they find Dorian Gray stabbed in the heart and above him a

glorious portrait of him hanging on the wall. The man stabbed on the floor

is wrinkled and ugly. They don’t eve recognize him until they see the rings

on his fingers.

CONFLICT

PROTAGONIST

Dorian Gray, a man who is jolted out of oblivion at the beginning of

the novel and made aware of the idea that his youth and beauty are his

greatest gifts and that they will soon vanish with age.

ANTAGONIST

Lord Henry Wotton, the bored aristocrat who tells Dorian Gray that he

is extraordinarily beautiful. He decides to dominate Dorian and proceeds to

strip him of all his conventional illusions. He succeeds in making Dorian

live his life for art and forget moral responsibility.

A secondary antagonist is age. Dorian Gray runs from the ugliness of

age throughout his life. He runs from it, but he is also fascinated with

it, obsessively coming back again and again to look at the signs of age in

the portrait.

CLIMAX

The climax follows Sibyl Vane’s horrible performance on stage when

Dorian Gray tells her he has fallen out of love with her because she has

made something ugly. Here, Dorian rejects love for the ideal of beauty. The

next morning, he changes his mind and writes an impassioned letter of

apology, but too late; Sibyl has committed suicide.

OUTCOME

Dorian Gray becomes mired in the immorality of his existence. He

places no limit on his search for pleasure. He ruins people’s lives without

qualm. His portrait shows the ugliness of his sins, but his own body

doesn’t. His attempts at reform fail. He even kills a messenger of reform--

Basil Hallward. Finally, he kills himself as he attempts to "kill" the

portrait. He dies the ugly, old man and the portrait returns to the vision

of his beautiful youth.

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946)

Type of Work: Fantasy / science fiction novel

Setting: England; late nineteenth century, and

Principle Characters:

The Time Traveller, an inquisitive, scientific man

Weena, a future woman

Story Overview

One Thursday evening, four or five men assembled for dinner at a

friend's home near London. But as the evening passed, their host failed to

appear. Finally, at half past seven the guests agreed it was a pity to

spoil a good dinner and seated themselves to a delicious meal. The main

topic of their conversation was time travel, a subject their host had

seriously argued as a valid theory during an earlier dinner.

He had gone so far as to show them the model of a curious machine he

had built, which, he declared, could travel through the fourth dimension -

time. While the guests conversed, the door suddenly opened and in limped

their host. He was in a state of disarray. His coat was dusty, dirty and

smeared with green; his hair was markedly grayer than the last time they

had seen him, his face pale, and his expression haggard and drawn as if by

intense suffering. As he stumbled back through the door in tattered,

bloodstained socks, he promised his guests that be would return shortly

with an explanation for his actions and appearance.

Soon after, the gentleman did reappear, and commenced with his

remarkable story:

That morning, his machine at last completed, he had begun his journey

through time. Increasing the angle of his levers, at first he was able to

maintain a sense of time and place. His laboratory still looked the same,

but slowly its image dimmed. Then, faster and faster, night followed day,

until the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous grayness.

New questions sprung up in the Traveller's mind: What had happened to

civilization? How had humanity changed?

Now he saw great and splendid architecture rising about him, while

the surrounding expanse became a richer green, with no interruptions made

by winter. The Time Traveller decided to stop.

He fell from his machine to find himself at the foot of a colossal,

winged, sphinx-like figure carved out of white stone on a bronze pedestal.

The huge image, outlined by early morning mist, made him somewhat ill at

ease. Then he noticed figures approaching, - slight creatures, perhaps four

feet high, very beautiful and graceful, but indescribably frail. These

beings advanced toward the Time Traveller, laughing without fear, and began

touching him all over. "So these are the citizens of the future," he mused.

They acted like five-year old children, and the Traveller was disappointed

with their lack of intelligence and refinement.

These gentle people, called Eloi, bore their visitor to a towering

building that appeared ready to collapse. Their world in general seemed in

disrepair - a beautiful, tangled waste of bushes and flowers; a long-

neglected and yet weedless garden. The Eloi served their guest a meal that

consisted entirely of fruit. During this repast, they all sat as close to

the Time Traveller as they could.

With much difficulty he began to learn their language, but the Floi,

with their very short attention spans, tired easily of teaching him. That

evening the Traveller began to hypothesize how these people, who all looked

identical, dressed alike, and reacted to life in the same way, had evolved.

Perhaps, he thought, mankind had overcome the numerous difficulties of life

facing it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Under new conditions

of perfect comfort and security, perhaps power and intellect - the very

qualities he most valued - had no longer been necessary. He decided that he

had emerged into the sunset of humanity; a vegetarian society - for he had

noticed no animals - where there was no need for either reasoning or

strength. As night drew near, the Time Traveller suddenly realized that his

time machine had vanished. Engulfed by the fear of losing contact with his

own age and being left helpless in this strange new world, he flew into a

desperate rampage, a futile attempt to find his machine.

Soon the voyager's panic faded as he realized his machine was

probably inside the huge stone figure near the spot where he had "landed."

He pounded on the bronze doors without effect, but he was certain he had

heard some voice from inside - a distinct little chuckle. Calm, welcome

sleep, finally overcame the adventurer, and he reasoned that in time he

would succeed in breaking into the stone behemoth to regain his machine.

Another day passed. The Time Traveller came to realize that he had

been wrong about the little beings. The Eloi had no machinery or appliances

of any kind, yet they were clothed in pleasant fabric and their sandals

were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Perhaps this was a truly

advanced society.

Later, the Time Traveller rescued an Eloi woman from drowning. Her

name was Weena. Weena, unable to vocally express her gratitude and regard

for the Time Traveller, slept by his side in the dark. This took great

courage because the Eloi feared darkness and never ventured from their

buildings after sunset. This point also puzzled the Time Traveller: If the

Eloi lived in a perfect society, then why were they afraid of the dark?

On the fourth day of his adventure, the Traveller came across other

earth creatures. These subterranean, ape-like vermin were called Morlocks.

Summoning courage, the Time Traveller warily descended into their world to

learn what he could about them. There he found the machines that he had not

seen above ground. Morlocks were apparently another race of man's

descendants, no longer able to tolerate the sun-lit surface of the planet.

Here were the enemies who had taken his time machine. By their smell and

appearance they were obviously carnivores.

Suddenly the Traveller understood why the Eloi feared darkness. They

were like fatted calves, kept well and healthy, only to be seized and eaten

when the Morlocks grew hungry. Eloi society wasn't perfect after all.

A few days later, Weena and the Time Traveller set out to search for

a weapon they could use to break into the pedestal where the machine was

hidden. Coming across an ancient museum, they collected matches, some

camphor for a candle, and, most important of all, an iron mace. The sun was

setting as they emerged from the museum. Though filled with a sense of

doom, and having several miles of forest between them and safety, they

nevertheless started for home in the shadowy darkness.

Morlocks proceeded to close in on them along the way. The beasts were

temporarily driven off each time the Time Traveller lighted a match, but

finally, in an effort to slow them down, he ignited a larger fire. In

minutes the entire forest was in flames. The Traveller was able to escape -

but Weena was lost in the flames. Standing on a knoll, he looked out over

the burning wasteland, and mourned the loss of his devoted Eloi friend.

When morning came, the Time Traveller began retracing his steps to

the place where he bad originally landed. On the way he pondered how brief

the reign of human intellect had been. Our priceless, heroic, human

existence had been traded for a life of comfort and ease.

Now, as the voyager approached the stone relic, he found the door of

the pedestal open. Inside was his time machine. It was an obvious trap, but

the Morlocks had no idea how the device worked. The Traveller sprinted to

his machine and adjusted the lever, while fighting off several Morlocks.

Then he found himself enveloped by the same welcome grey light and tumult

he had before observed. He had escaped that dismal future.

The visit to the Eloi took place in the year 802,701. The Time

Traveller next journeyed through millions of years, seeing even more alien

creatures than before. Finally halting thirty million years after he had

departed, he found a distant age where the sun no longer shone brightly. In

bitter cold and deathly stillness, the horrified Traveller started back

toward the present.

The guests listened with mixed emotions to the last of this tale.

Their host seemed sincere; but was such a feat possible? A few days later

one of his friends came to hear more. Again, the Traveller excused himself,

asking his guest to wait momentarily and he would be back with evidence of

this excursion. Three years elapsed and the Time Traveller had not

reappeared. He was considered by his friends as a lost wanderer, somewhere

in time.

Ulysses by J.Joyce

Chapter One: Telemachus

When James Joyce began writing his novel Ulysses, he had in mind a

creative project that brought together aspects of his two major works

Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while at the same time

incorporating aspects of Homer's epic The Odyssey. The novel Ulysses

encompasses a total of eighteen chapters, tracing the actions of various

Dubliners beginning at 8 am on the day of June 16, 1904.

Chapter One opens with the breakfast of three young men: Haines, a

British student who is in Dublin on temporary leave from Oxford; Malachi

"Buck" Mulligan, a medical student; and Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist

from Portrait and the central character in the first three chapters of

Ulysses. The three young men are living in Martello Tower, for which only

Stephen pays rent as he is the one who has rented it from the Ministry of

War. We immediately discover that there are tense relations between

Mulligan and Stephen; particularly, Stephen feels increasingly ostracized,

as Mulligan and Haines become closer. Further, Buck spares no sympathy in

his constant tormenting of Stephen in regards to the recent death of his

mother, Mary Dedalus. Stephen is, in general, the butt of most of

Mulligan№s jokes.

Particularly, Mulligan teases Stephen that he is responsible for his

mother's death because upon seeing her on her deathbed, he refused her

pleas for him to pray, having distanced himself from organized religion. In

this, Mulligan jokes that his aunt has refused to allow him to keep company

with Stephen, as his apostasy is made worse by being the murderer of his

mother. Further, Stephen feels distanced from Haines; Stephen feels that

Haines is somewhat patronizing in his attitude towards Stephen's desire to

become a poet. Haines is a British native and both Mulligan and Stephen

despise him, though Mulligan masks his true thoughts with hypocrisy and

flattery. Haines appears as a spoiled student and a shallow thinker. He

argues that British oppression is not the cause of Ireland№s problems;

rather "history" is to blame. Interrupting the young men's conversation

about Ireland and its international politics, an old lady arrives to

deliver the morning milk and Stephen finds that he is forced to pay the

bill. Soon after breakfast, the three men leave the Tower to walk along the

beach. After making plans to meet Stephen at a bar called the Ship around

noon, Mulligan asks him for his key to the tower. After, forfeiting his key

to Mulligan, Stephen departs from his two roommates, feeling that he has

been usurped from his position.

Chapter Two: Nestor

About an hour after "Telemachus" ends, we find Stephen teaching

ancient history and the classics to a disrespectful class of wealthy boys.

Neither Stephen nor the students are particularly interested in the lesson

which concerns the martial exploits of the Greek hero, Pyrrhus. Armstrong,

the class clown, is disruptive and Talbot, a lazy cheater who is reading

the answers out of his book, does not bother to hide his act from Stephen,

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