Fifth Business

      1.      Author/Setting:  Written by Robertson Davies, Fifth Business is set mostly in a town called Deptford in Canada.  During World War I Dunny is mostly in England, where he fought.

2.         2.  Characters:  Dunstable (Dunstan) “Dunny” is an eccentric old man writing a novel length letter to the headmaster of the school he works at as an attempt to validate his existence.  He’s obsessed with saints and with his own “fool saint”.  Mary Dempster is Dunny’s “fool saint”, the woman who he believed saved him and resurrected his brother.  She’s a sweet, kind, and simple woman, not seeming to really be fully aware ever since the snowball.  Liesl is important to the plot because she acts very possibly as the devil.  Percy Boyd Staunton, later known as simply "Boy", is possibly the star of this story in which Dunny is fifth business.  Paul Dempster is Mrs. Dempster's son, and he could be interpreted in many ways.  The circumstances of his birth could lead to an interpretation as a Christ figure, but his career as a magician lends him more to being an anti-Christ.  He is the other character in this novel that might be the lead that casts Dunny as fifth business.

            3.  Plot:  When dodging a snowball as a kid leads to a series of chain reactions Dunny doesn’t know what to do.  His poor neighbor went “simple”, which led to his falling in love with her, which led to his sub-concious need to defend her, which eventually made him go to war.  In the war he was nearly killed but was saved by the image he saw of Mrs. Dempster.  This is when he becomes obsessed with the idea of saints.  While on a quest for saints Dunny stumbles upon a magic act put on by Paul Dempster, the boy whose Birth pushed Mrs. Dempster over the edge.  Dunny ends up as Mrs. Dempster’s guardian and puts her in a home so that he can search for saints whenever he so desires.  One such trip leads him to Paul again, but this time he also meets the devil.  Liesl names Dunny as fifth business, the role he has been playing his whole life without knowing it.  

4.        4.  Narrative Voice:  Fifth Business is written in first person, in the past tense.  The narrator is extremely unreliable.  Davies uses a lot of biblical imagery, not just with the saints, but even Paul’s birth is a parallel to the birth of Jesus.  One symbol we see is the statue of Madonna that Dunny finds before he goes into his coma.  This statue draws a connection between Mary Dempster and the Virgin Mary.  It also symbolizes the purity of Mrs. Dempster.  The tone for the most part is academic, seeing as it is basically a memoir written by a school teacher.

5.        5.  Quotes:  “Having me in the dining-room was almost the equivalent of having a Raeburn on the walls; I was classy, I was heavily varnished, and I offended nobody.” – Dunny.  This shows how Dunny is fifth business.  He is much appreciated and the world is better with him in it, but he isn’t, strictly speaking, necessary.  “I thought I was in love with Leola, by which I meant that if I could have found her in a quiet corner, and if I had been certain that no one would ever find out, and if I could have summoned up the courage at the right moment, I would have kissed her. But, looking back on it now, I know that I was in love with Mrs. Dempster.” – Dunny.  This is the first time that Dunny ever admits to loving Mrs. Dempster, and since the novel is about their relationship, it’s pretty important.  This quote is also important because it connects Leola and Mrs. Dempster as the two faces of Madonna.

6.        6.  Theme Sentence:  Don’t let the stories of others rule your life, you are who you are and that doesn’t need to be defined in any way.  Dunny lets the stories of the saints rule his life, even when he fights with Liesl he follows the footsteps of someone before him.  When he breaks her nose, it is reminiscent of St. Dunstan pulling the Devil’s nose with tongs.  The idea that Dunny is fifth business shows that you shouldn’t try to fit yourself into a predefinded position, because Dunny doesn’t fit perfectly into his role of fifth business and therefore spends his life grappling with it.  Even before his position is defined, he struggles with his nature.

Pride and Prejudice

      1.  Author/Setting:  Jane Austen set her novel Pride and Prejudice in her own time period, the late 1700’s/early 1800’s.  It takes place in England, mostly in the small town of Longbourn where the main character and her family live.  The characters also go to London and Pemberley sometimes.


      2.  Characters:  The main character in the novel is Elizabeth Bennet, the wittiest of her sisters and second eldest of five.  Elizabeth is the least sociable of her sisters in that she is too smart and sarcastic to fit well with society of the time and as such doesn’t always try to.  Mr. Darcy is the love interest.  He’s the pride to Elizabeth’s prejudice, and the money to Mrs. Bennet’s greed.  Mr. Darcy appreciates Elziabeth’s rebellious nature and sparkling repartee.  Elizabeth’s sister Jane and Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley also play prominent roles in the novel.

      3.  Plot:  The Bennet’s go to ball at their new neighbor, Mr. Bingley’s, house and it shapes the rest of their lives.  Here Jane meets Mr. Bingley and they seem to get closer and closer to marriage, the next step in Victorian society, with every passing day.   This ball is also where Elizabeth meets Mr. Darcy, a man she thoroughly detests because he is too proud and narrow minded to dance with anyone.  Eventually Mr. Bingely leaves and all of the Bennets are sad, for they had been hoping to see wedding soon.  Right before they leave an officer named Wickham comes around and he and Elizabeth hit it off.  Elizabeth goes traveling and happens to run into Darcy who proposes to her, admitting to his affections for her.  Elizabeth says no because she had just found out that Bingley left because Darcy told him not to marry Jane.  Lydia runs off with Wickham a bit later in the novel, and Darcy helps to find them.  When the chaos is over we learn that Bingley and Jane are to be married and so are Elizabeth and Darcy.

      4.  Narrative Voice:  The narrator is in third person and omniscient, though things are mostly told through the perspective of Elizabeth.  Again we’re in the past tense.  The main imagery in Pride and Prejudice is through Mr. Darcy and Pemberley.  Mr. Darcy symbolizes pride, and the upper class.  Pemberley symbolizes the life Elizabeth could have led, and the foreshadowing of her happiness.  When Elizabeth first sees the Pemberley estate she realizes that she could’ve been happy there, and that leads to her later realization that she could be happy married to Darcy.


      5.  Quotes:  “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”  This quote is the first sentence of the novel, which makes it even more significant than it already is.  This quote shows a lot about the novel and its themes.  It illustrates how ridiculously stereotypical the novel and the characters are, and how very concerned with money the characters are.  “Till this moment I never knew myself.”  - Elizabeth Bennet.  This is right after Elizabeth finds out that Wickham is not a very nice man, and she is realizing that she may be too quick to judge people.  If Elizabeth had never uttered these words she may never have understood herself well enough to later realize that she had fallen in love with Mr. Darcy, which is a rather important part of the novel.


      6.  Theme Sentence:  The main theme of this novel is that to get enough love and wealth to be happy, you must be who you are.  Jane, Elizabeth, and Lydia are all very out-going girls, if only in that none of them seem to project a very different image in public than they do at home.  We also see this in the exaggeration of the character traits in the novel.  The symbolism in Mary's piano playing skills is a place where we see an example of unhappiness due to her not being true to herself.

Hamlet

      1.  Author/Setting:  Set in Elsinore, Denmark, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of his most well-known works.  It takes place in the late medieval years, though its exact time frame is unknown.

1.            2.  Characters:  The main character here is Hamlet, a young man distraught after the death of his father and his mother’s “o’er hasty marriage”. He starts to go mad, though it is argued by some literary critics that he is only faking being mad.  The Ghost of Hamlet the elder is a prominent character for though he is not always on stage he is the reason for most of Hamlet’s actions and possibly for his madness.  Another really prominent character is Ophelia, Hamlet’s girlfriend of sorts.  She is a sweet girl, she inspires love in all who surround her, which ironically leads to bitter fights later.

            3.  Plot:  Hamlet just came home from school for his father’s funeral/mother’s wedding when the guards see his recently deceased father wandering the grounds.  They decide that he should be informed of the matter and so he keeps watch with them that night and after seeing the ghost decides to go peak with him.  The ghost tells him that Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, killed him, and that he must be avenged.  Now for a good while Hamlet ponders what he’s heard seeing opportunities to kill Claudius and holding off.  Ophelia talks to him on her father’s orders, trying to discern the cause of his madness, but he spurns her and that is where we mark the beginning of Ophelia’s madness.  Eventually Ophelia drowns, and Hamlet and Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, both jump into her grave and fight over who loved her more.  In the end of Hamlet the queen drinks poison meant for Hamlet, Laertes cuts Hamlet with a poisoned blade, Hamlet kills Laertes with a poisoned blade, Hamlet kills Claudius with said blade, and then Hamlet dies of his wounds, leaving almost everyone dead on the stage. 

1.            4.  Quotes:  “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” – Marcellus.  When Marcellus says this he is probably referring to multiple things.  One of the things he is talking about is the “damned incest” between the Queen and Claudius, another thing is the corruption in the monarchy that led to Claudius being king in the first place.  Besides the political corruption there’s also the rampant murders and madness which is spreading like the plague.  “Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward…” – Hamlet.  One point that is commonly made about Hamlet is that he spends most of the play wondering whether or not he should kill Claudius.  This quote shows why he’s reluctant and what he thinks about his own decisions.  He's reluctant, because he's worried that his idea is based in idiocy, yet he thinks himself a coward for being reluctant.

1.            5.  Theme Sentence:  We don’t know the meaning of life or if there's anything after death, so we can’t sit around and wait for life to come to us, people have to take action or bad things will happen.  In Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy he  discusses the ideas of life and death and what both of them mean.  We also see the symbolism of death come through with the skull, and the symbol of religion in the ghost, which goes to shows that Shakespeare is pointing out how little we know about death.  In Hamlet’s Act IV soliloquy “How all occasions do inform against me,” he says “to find quarrel in a straw when honor’s at the stake,” this quote shows us that he believes action is the right course, and where does his pondering get him? Dead.  Along with the rest of his family and multiple other people.

Ceremony

      1.  Author/Setting:  Ceremony was written by Leslie Marmon Silko.  The time in which Ceremony is set son after World War II, but the novel does not take you on the journey of Tayo’s life in chronological order.  Because of this we are moved around in time somewhere between the 1920’s and 1950’s.  Most of the novel takes place in and around the Laguna Reservation in the South West U.S., but some parts of the time web take place in the Philippines and a mythical land.


      2.   Characters:  The main character is Tayo, a man recently returned from war and suffering from PTSD.  Tayo is half white and half Laguna Pueblo, so he tries for Indian cures, when the white scientist cures don’t work.  This is where a man named Betonie comes in, half American Indian and half Mexican he understands the different worlds that Tayo is trying to peacefully inhabit.  Ts’eh is Tayo’s lover (for lack of a better term), a smart woman who knows herself and the world well.  Emo is the antagonist of the novel, he tries to kill Tayo, and tortures Harley.  Harley is a friend of Tayo's who also went to war, he became an alcoholic and now spends his days drinking.  Rocky is Tayo's cousin, but after a while they become like brothers.  


      3.  Plot:  When Tayo returns home from the war, a part of him stays in the Philippines where he was fighting.  Rocky, who entered service with him, died over seas, and at one point over there Tayo believes a man his comrades killed was his uncle, at least in spirit.  At the time of the story PTSD wasn’t a diagnosis, and the doctors don’t know what to do for Tayo.  The American Indians call it ghost sickness, and try to cure it their way.  It turns out the only way to cure Tayo is with a good old fashioned ceremony.  While Tayo goes on his journey we see glimpses back into his childhood, explaining how he ended up living with his extended family.  In the present time of his journey Tayo meets Ts’eh, the final piece of his puzzle.  Ts’eh helps Tayo though the last part of the ceremony, curing him and saving his community.  The last part of the ceremony was when Tayo was being hunted by Emo, Leroy, and Harley.  Emo ends up torturing Harley to try to get Tayo to come out, but Tayo refuses, knowing that more people would die if he saved Harley.  Along Tayo's journey we learn about witches, who created the white man, and about the stories told among the Laguna people.


      4.  Narrative Voice:  The narrative voice of Ceremony is a third person limited perspective.  It’s written in the past tense and often shares Tayo’s confusion.  There is a lot of symbolism in the novel, the main points being directions, colors and the idea of cycles.  The directions are important to the American Indian people, each direction signifies a different thing, and which way animals and people move shows us what thy are trying to accomplish.  The colors often come into play to help show cycles, such as green signifying the Spring, which in and of itself symbolizes the cycle of rebirth.The tone of the piece is not really formal, but it is slightly detached.  The diction can be slightly irregular, thereby separating the reader from the flow of ideas.


      5.  Quotes:   "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different." – Old Grandma.  This quote sums up the ideas of the book pretty well.  It expresses the idea of rebirth and cycles, which is a prominent theme throughout the novel.  It also shows the importance of stories in culture, particularly American Indian culture.  “The end of the story.  They want to change it.  They want it to end here, the way all their stories end, encircling slowly to choke the life away.”- Ts’eh.  This quote shows how stories, even though they are being repeated can be changed.  It also shows the importance of carrying the stories on, even as the culture dies out.


      6.  Theme Sentence:  Stories are the truth of this world; they record our past, forecast our future, and help us through the present; believe in the idea of the stories and the ending will not be a bad one.  Silko uses the juxtaposition of the poetry and the story to show us how the past and present coincide and also how the stories are interwoven.  Silko also uses quotes to enforce this meaning, such as the one by Old Grandma above.

Death of a Salesman

1.            1.  Author/Setting:  Written by Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman is set in the late 1940’s with multiple flashbacks to unidentifiable years.  The actual happenings of the play are in Brooklyn, but the flashbacks take place in other cities in the U.S.

2.            2.  Characters: The play focuses on the life of Willy Loman, a destitute salesman who has possibly started to go crazy after being fired from his job and being underappreciated.  Willy places large emphasis on his being well liked, though by the end of his life he isn’t liked so well.  Linda Loman is Willy’s wife, a very kind and patient woman who tends to let people trample all over her.  Their kids, Happy and Biff, also play a large role, neither is truly successful and so neither is truly loved by their father in the end.    

3.         3.  Plot:  When Willy realizes that the only way to support his family or keep his house is to accept charity from a friend or a job offered out of pity he decides he'd rather kill himself than admit that defeat.  This is the story of why Willy committed suicide, as told through flashbacks of Willy’s life.  Willy works as a salesman but never really works up the corporate ladder, so he drives to other cities to sell his products.  In one of the cities he has a mistress and unfortunately Biff stumbles upon this fact.  When he does he and his father grow apart, leading to more familial problems.  In the “present” of the play Biff and Happy are staying at home for a bit, trying to help cheer up their father who appears to have attempted suicide a couple times.  Instead of helping their attempts show Willy that he needs to get money even more and drives him to make one last attempt at suicide.  This time he succeeds, thereby getting the insurance money to help provide for his family.

4.         4.  Quotes: “A diamond is hard and rough to the touch.” – Ben.  This quote says that a true dream is a diamond.  A true, organic dream isn’t manufactured or manipulated by society, it’s solid, it’s got substance that you can thrive off of.  It also shows that a true dream like that is rare, and may look hard and unsuitable on the outside.  “I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have - to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him." – Happy.  Happy here is telling us what the stated dream is in this play, and he shows how his father did die in vain.  Willy’s sons should’ve learned from his death that what he had been striving for isn’t what anyone should be striving for, but Happy instead thinks that it’s all he should work for.  He’ll follow in his father’s footsteps toward the dream which will alienate him entirely.

5.        5.  Theme Sentence: The more you work for a petty society driven ideal the farther from it and more alienated from yourself and those you love you’ll become.  The symbolism of the single flute playing in parts of the work show how alone Willy is, which proves that his striving for a societal ideal has cut him off from his family.  Through Willy’s confrontation with his boss about not going on the road anymore we see that he really is getting farther from his goal, because he explains that earlier in his life he was promised a job there in New York, but as he got older he got farther from getting the job.  We also see this idea in the imagery of the jungle that Ben wants Willy to go to.  He lives in NY, so to go diamond hunting in a jungle is definitely farther away than his job on the road.