Great Expectations structure characters

 Introduction

Charles Dickens (1812-1870),Britain’s most famous Victorian novelist, is the most important classical writer only second to Shakespeare in the history of English literature. Furthermore he is one of the most outstanding representatives under the class of critical realism. He composed quite a good number of claasical woks, making a unique contribution to the development of the realistic novel from theUnited Kingdomand the European.

  Great Expectations is Dickens’s one of the most representative works of the late period, of which the structure and language are called the most perfect among all his great works.. “This novel describes a young man’s uncertain pursuit of the” Great Expectations “, and finally the disillusionment of it. As the novel vividly depicts the life of money and the pursuit of high society, the original naïve and kind hero Pepys gradually becomes vain, ungrateful in a series of tragedies and eventually returns to the beauty of human nature. In this novel, in a unique way, he describes the universally significant theme of the growth of young people in the 19th century’s literature, and deeply criticizes the corrosion of human nature by the evil and greed, capitalism and money,. At the same time the novel also creates many lifelike characters who jointly forges the success of this masterpiece.

Summary

The story was told by the protagonist Pip. Pip was a poor child who was brought up by his older sister Mrs. Joe. He lived with his sister and his sister’s husband Joe, a blacksmith, who was his best friend. Pip and Joe always be scolded by Mrs. Joe. He is a common child but he enjoyed his happy life with Joe. And it would be more prefer if his sister didn’t always told how she brought Pip up. But Pip’ life had change when he met a stranger who escaped from the prison. Pip had to steal a file, some bread, some cheese, a big meat pie and some brandy to that convict. Pip was frightened that his sister would discover that he had stolen from her. But he was so lucky that the soldiers caught the convict who admitted he had stolen the food from the Joe’s house. Pip helped Joe in the forge for most of the day and learned in an evening school. One night, about a year after the escaped convicts had been caught, Pip was writing a letter to Joe to practice his writing and they was talking the childhood of the poor Joe who had a lazy drunk father. Joe was so ridiculous that he had invented that his father has a good heart and form the start. Then Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook came back with good news that Miss. Havisham with a huge heritage gave Pip a chance to visit her. Pip was sent to Uncle Pumblechook with tear after he had been washed from toe to toe in his sister’ violent manner. Pip arrived the large house and was guided by a young pretty proud girl Estella. He was left in the dark room and he found there was an old bride in the ancient and dying room. Pip had been ordered to play in the room alone after he talked with Miss. Havisham for a while. Then Estella came. The old scandalous woman Miss. Havisham ordered Estella break Pip’s heart by borrowing a jewel. Estella played with Pip and laugh at Pip’s coarse hands and the thick boots. She treated Pip as a dog, which made Pip sad. Pip was hurt and wished he could be different. Pip lied to his sister and uncle for fun but he talked the fact to honest Joe. Pip did his best to change him for Estella and him given two pound notes as well as the coin from a stranger. Pip met an important man Mr. Jaggers in his life and fight with a pale young gentleman Herbert Pocket who would be his good friend when he visited Miss. Havisham at the second time. Then Pip became Joe’s apprentice after Miss. Havisham gave them 25 pounds and talked them don’t expect more. In a year, Pip worked in the forge but he missed Estella and he persuaded Joe to give him a leave which brought about the war between Orlick and his sister. And Orlick left Joe’s forge. Pip visited Miss. Havisham and knew that Estella was abroad. On his way home, he knew there was something bad happen in his home. His sister has been attacked. Pip worked with Joe for 4 years, and everything is common until Jaggers appeared. Jaggers talked them that Pip would be very rich when he was older and must remove from his home and educate as a gentleman who expects to inherit a fortune. Pip left his home and was ungrateful to Joe. Pip became pound. He thought Biddy was jealous of him. He didn’t want Joe, his deer good friend, because of his imperfect manner. Then Pip arrivedLondonand met Herbert again. He knew what Miss. Havisham had suffered and something about Estella. Joe visited Pip carefully and brought him good news that Estella would be glad to bee Pip. Estella talked Pip that she wouldn’t love everyone except herself, which hurt Pip again. Pip helped Herbert by using his great expectations. But soon he knew the truth that the fortune he would inherit was belong to the convict he had helped, as the convict Abel Magwitch visited him. Pip planed Magwitch’s future and heard his part. Pip visited Miss. Havisham and Estella again. He begged Miss. Havisham for Herbert’s expectation and unburdened his love to Estella. Pip hoped Estella would have her happiness but Estella decided to marry Drummle who wouldn’t love her. Then Pip found someone was searched for Magwitch who escaped and understood all between Magwitch, Estella, Havisham, and Compeyson who circumvented Magwitch and hurt Havisham. Miss. Havisham realized how Pip has suffered, therefore, she decided to help Herbert and begged for Pip’s forgive. Pip experienced Orlick’s attack and Magwitch’s death. So many thing made him began understood the truth of the life. He decided to go back to the village to thank Joe for all his help and asked Biddy to marry him. However, Biddy had married Joe as he came. Pip left the forge, started a new life, working as a clerk for Herbert’s company, and lived inIndiafor many years. In the end he became a partner in the company by hardworking and honest. He had a real great expectation. Eleven years later, Pip came back to saw Joe and Biddy again. They had the happiness. Pip met Estella who had suffered so much, had realized Pip’s love, and change her pride. They felt so different between each other. They became friends.

The perfect structure

The typical structure of Dickens’s works is a pluralistic whole, with characters, clues, plot and other various elements to form a unified whole.

   In Great Expectations, there are many characters, and the images the main characters are well highlighted. Pip, Joe sister, Qiaoge Qi Li, Premier, Hao Wei-Xian, Ace winking ofmoss Na, Jaggers, Herbert, Mageweiqi and other activities of the main characters throughout the text of the roads formed the main line: Pip’s growth process; Pip source of the mystery of the property; Pip and Ace moss Na love; Ace moss Na mystery of life experience; Miss Hao Weixian a strange experience; Pip and Herbert friendship; Mageweiqi the bizarre experience; Jaggers activities and Pip, Qiaoge Qi Li, and the feelings of these clues Beattie organically intertwined. As the plot unfolds, the mystery has been revealed one by one, when everything is presented to the readers in the twinkling of an eye, we can deeply feel the fine layout of and rigorous structure of the novel.

 

3.The perfect depiction of the characters

 

Dickens portrays his characters to the life. They look quite different, vivid and moving.

In Great Expectations, the characters’ specific characteristics are reflected as follows:

One aspect is to determine the nature of people. As outlined in the novel, Miss Hao Weixiang should belong to the typical bad woman. She is spoiled since her childhood. After being cheated by the groom in the wedding day she never leaves home. Since then, “to revenge the world’s men” seems to be all her life, and she herself also becomes a sheer old monster. Another aspect is to clarify all the people. In Dickens’s novels, each character represents a certain group of people, reflecting the commonality of them. Take the image of Jaggers, he is inLondonto fully reflect the image of lawyers in society inLondon. The third aspect is to explore the connotation of people’s nature. Dickens is very good at mining the implied human factors, and through them to reflect the general tendency of human nature and the laws of certain things. Joe sister, who’s attacked by the gangsters becomes paralyzed in bed, becomes to be a person of a mild temperament. Even when  attached to dying, she also takes Joe and asks his forgiveness;

Charles takes a great effort to shape up and down the cultivation of the character of the hero. One who is a positive protagonist in the works is respectable. Even if there are certain shortcoming for the moment, he is always take great efforts to continue to perform good deeds and moral self-perfection. Before seeing how the plot and artistic skill are, just the beauty of the hero’s personality is enough to touch us deeply and attractour hearts.

 

4   Comment

The novel told the story in the first person Pip. Through the experience of Pip, the writer waned to tell us the following principle: You would have your great expectation if you were hard-working.

Pip wanted to have a great expectation after he met Estella. He was different from those who don’t try to have a great expectation. However, he dreamed that he would have a great expectation with the help of Miss. Havisham who was rich. He hoped there was someone would give him a huge fortune and make him become a rich man with a great expectation. He didn’t think that he would have a great expectation by himself. He believed that he wouldn’t reach Estella’s level in a short time and Estella wouldn’t love even accept him until Miss. Havisham order her. Many people wanted to be given a great expectation or a huge fortune from other such as a rich man who likes you or a rich relation. However, in fact of the matter, you were successful if you were hard-working and honest. And it’s the real expectation belong to you if you got it by yourself.

The writer also pointed some absurd phenomena of many people. Pip looked down on his best friend Joe because he didn’t a perfect manner like a gentleman. He forgot Joe’s kindness which used to make him feel encouraged. He felt he was different from poor Joe, Joe made him shame. In the times, most of people look up to the rich man who may give him a good expectation. They live for money without love. They love money more than friendship and kindness. They believed that a gentleman especially a rich man was more kind and perfect. So Compeyson who cheated Miss. Havisham and murdered the partners was light sentenced. The society was unfair. Pip understood the truth that Joe was the real friend who would not leave him, and the real friend was more important than money. We shouldn’t accept someone because he is a gentleman or look down on someone who doesn’t have a perfect manner. We should know someone really and treat them fairly.

Pip was a kind child who helped the convict and wanted to be a hard-working man like kind Joe. But he became proud after he knew he would have a great expectation. He left his deer friends Joe and Biddy. He did something wrong. But he was a kind man also. As he knew the fact, he understood the truth. He forgave Miss. Havisham who used to hurt him and saved her; he helped the convict and begged for his friend; he declined the money from Miss. Havisham and worked hard to got his own great expectation; he hoped Estella have happiness though she hurt him badly. He was not a fatuous man who don’t have dream.

Estella was a heroine in the novel. She was pathetic. She left her parents and became a tool which Miss. Havisham used to hurt man. She didn’t believe love and was ruthless. She became a poor woman without love and was hurt by another cruel man, her husband. The writer punished her bloodiness by her husband for years, but he gave a change to her to got happiness with Pip at last because she was trained to be a cruel girl and she had change a lot. She understood love and she was not proud any more. She became a real woman who knows how to love and give.

Both Pip and Estella were lost themselves in that times, but they realized the truth of life at last and would got their happiness at last we could know. That is what the writer wanted to show us. Love, honest, and hard-working are more important. You would have a great expectation if you keep them and don’t lost yourself.

 

Conclusion

 

   Dickens’s works have always maintained the loyalty to the general population and the pessimistic attitudes towards the capitalist society. He is a bourgeois writer, a humanist, as well as reformist. He does not support the revolution, in that revolution seems too cruel, and in that revolution is a just personal revenge. He advocates the use of betterment and the power of moral influence. In particular, he advocates to take the little people of sincere warmth to improve society and make the evil conscious of what they should be.. He advocates universal love and sincerity, and hates hypocrisy and the evil monk. He portrayed a positive image of all working women who are of gentle graciousness of the beautiful kind. On the contrary, the woman characters of violence, revengefulness, snobbishness are often punished by the fate and finally restore the human nature  before the “good” touching and harsh realities of life.

Dickens has attained very high literary achievement, whose impact on the world’s literature is immense. His works have been introduced intoChinain the early 20th century and were widely accepted by readers. The concept of humanitarianism , the spirit of social criticism, and the superb artistic skills, have an great impact on modern Chinese fiction.

   Dickens is theUK’s most popular novelist. Even one century after his death, he is still worthy of this honorable title.

 

参考文献
[1] 克尔凯·郭尔.[M]阎嘉等,译.陕西:陕西师范大学出版社,2002:4
[2]Bloom Harod.Charles dickens’ Great Expectations[J].Oxford:Oxford university 2001,7:5
[3]韦政通.中国的智慧[M].长春:吉林文史出版社,1988:250
[4]路易·阿尔都塞.[M].唐正东,吴静,译.南京:南京大学出版社,2005:314
[5]艾温·辛格.[M]郜元宝,译.广西:广西师范大学出版社,2001:150
[6] 中国大百科全书出版社 美国不列颠百科全书公司合作编译.简明不列颠百科全书[M].北京：中国大百科全书出版社，1985—1986:45

Lost in Substance

Why did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

     Actually I’m not so fond of the writer of Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser. As the representative of naturalism, Dreiser regards the pursuit of material life as the most important motivation. He attempts to persuade readers to take to the image of Sister Carrie, though she is opposite to our moral standard at all. However, this novel disclosures the darkness and ugliness of temporal American society. In fact, there exists the same phenomenon in our modern society. It has critical realistic sense.

 

                       Lost in Substance                                                                 

 Abstract:   

In the novel of Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser depicts a story of a lady’s rise from a poor country girl to a Broadway star. Dreiser deeply disclosures the weakness and ugliness of human beings such as the heroine Carrie, with the desires driven by the force of individual and society.                                                 

This essay will view from the angle of Carrie’s psychology and the American social situation during the centurial alternation, then analyzes the individual and social motivations behind Carrie’s desires. The thesis divides Carrie’s desires into two kinds, one is substance and the other is spirit. As a tragic character Carrie, we should seek for the reasons of the tragedy, the physical and environment forces, fate and chances which decided that she would be a victim.

At last, we can get a conclusion that Carrie’s moral result is produced by the increasing distance between the poor and the rich in America, her typical road is paved by American society.

Key Words: Sister Carrie, desires, consumerism

 

 

 

 

                           

 

Sister carrie

1. 1.     brief introduction of Theodore Dreiser

   Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 27, 1871, the twelfth of thirteen children. His gentle and devoted mother was illiterate; his German immigrant father was severe and distant. From the former he seems to have absorbed a quality of compassionate wonder; from the latter he seems to have inherited moral earnestness and the capacity to persist in the face to failure, disappointment, and despair. Dreiser’s childhood was decidedly unhappy. The large family moved from house to house in Indiana dogged by poverty, insecurity, and internal division. Dreiser as a youth was as ungainly, confused, shy, and full of vague yearnings as most of his fictional protagonists, male and femal. In this as in many other ways, Dreiser’s novels are direct projections of his inner life as well as careful transcriptions of his expriences.

    His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), tells the story of a woman who flees her country life for the city (Chicago) and there lives a life far from a Victorian ideal. His second novel, Jennie Gerhardt, was published in 1911. Many of Dreiser’s subsequent novels dealt with social inequality. His first commercial success was An American Tragedy (1925), which was made into a film in 1931 and again in 1951. Though primarily known as a novelist, Dreiser published his first collection of short stories, Free and Other Stories in 1918.

    In his lifetime Dreiser was controversial as a man and as a writer. He was accused, with some justice by conventional standards, of being immoral in his personal behavior, a poor thinker, and a dangerous political radical; his style was said to be ponderous and his narrative sense weak. As time passes, however, Dreiser has been recognized as a profound and prescient critic of debased American values and as a powerful novelist.

 

 

 

2. Plot

Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline Meeber “Sister Carrie”,  takes the train to Chicago, where her older sister Minnie, and her husband Sven Hanson, have agreed to take her in. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. They exchange contact information, but upon discovering the “steady round of toil”.

Carrie soon embarks on a quest for work to pay rent to her sister and her husband, and takes a job running a machine in a shoe factory. One day, after an illness that costs her job, she encounters Drouet, who encourages her to dine with him. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in a much larger apartment with Drouet.

By the time Drouet introduces Carrie to George Hurstwood, the manager of Fitzgerald. Hurstwood becomes infatuated with Carrie’s youth and beauty, and before long they start an affair, communicating and meeting secretly. One day, the affair is uncovered. After a night of drinking, Hurstwood stumbles upon a large amount of cash in Fitzgerald and Moy’s offices. Under the pretext of Drouet’s sudden illness, he lures Carrie onto a train and escapes with her to Canada. Hurstwood mollifies Carrie by agreeing to marry her, and the couple move to New York City. After only a few years, Hurstwood soon discovers that his savings are running out. With a serious of things, Carrie leaves him; in her farewell note, she encloses twenty dollars.

Hurstwood ultimately becomes a beggar. Reduced to standing in line for bread and charity, he commits suicide in a flophouse. Meanwhile, Carrie achieves stardom, but finds that money and fame do not satisfy her longings or bring her happiness and that nothing will.

 

 

1. 2.     Main Character Analysis

Charles H. Drouet, a buoyant traveling salesman Carrie meets on the train to Chicago. For Carrie, Drouet plays many roles in her life. The first man she met after she left the contryside, and the first man who guided her to the mysterious and prosperity city.

George W. Hurstwood, a well-to-do, sophisticated man who manages Fitzgerald and Moy’s resort.

Sister Carrie, Carrie is a pure and pretty girl with little ambitions. She is young, bright, timid and ignorant. She is not educated well and possesses no excellent ability of observation and analysis. Self-interest is strongly kept in her mind. It is, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. For Carrie, countryside is entirely not a swell place to stay. She is dissatisfied with what she had. It seemes incongruous that she would live in countryside for long, marry a farmer and have children who will be farmers, too. Warm with the fancies of youth, she ventured to the mysterious city and attempted to realise her Amercian dream. She met Drouet on the train and was attracted by him and what he said about Chicago. She thought, she had met the true feeling while it was only a luring. And when Drouet praised her elegant appearance and the image of modern lady from the big city, Carrie raised the idea of being a part of Chicago. Then she went to find jobs, like many little girls who have beautiful dreams but couldn’t go into the society really.

Carrie is a nervous and sensitive. When she first passed along the stores; she was much affected by the remarkable displays of trinkets , dress goods ,stationery , and jewelry. She could not help feeling the beauty and stunning of this vigorous and prosperous city. She also felt inferior because of her own position and status in the high class society. A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She realized in a dim way how much the city held –wealth , fashion , ease meanwhile, indifferent, cruel and realistic. Women here enjoyed what she longed for, adornment, dress and a decent lover.  She dreamed beautiful clothes , hats ,delicious food and leisure life. Nevertheless, it was just a dream–only due to her poverty. She was so nervous and sensitive that She was afraid of the scoff from others for her poor education, clumsy expression and indecent behavior. She eagered to change her poor life, and wanted to achieve others’ respect.

Carrie is also a passive and vain character. Poor and pure as she is, she seems to be trapped in the bottom of society, but two men make her get rid of the difficult position. When Carrie leaves home at the age of 18 and takes train to Chicago, she soon becomes interested in Drouet seated behind her and talks to her due to his fine clothing and humorous and talktive image. And when she was forced by poor living and job condition, she is so moved by the way he treats her so that she agrees to move into a rented apartment for her. From then on, Carrie radically bids farewell to her virginity. With the beautiful dress and trinkets, Carrie is quickly becoming graceful and elegant, an entire city lady. It seems the happy ending is coming. Nevertheless, the story is destined. Carrie never falls in love with Drouet, at least, in the true sense. The reason why she agrees to be Drouet’s mistress, is not only her poverty and poor situation, but also Drouet’s income and the identification of citizen. Thus, when Carrie met Hurstwood who is far more refines and elegant than Drouet, Carrie was so excited because she found an ideal man for her. Hurstwood’s elegance, decence, and wealth fires her heart and got her love immediately. She believes that Mr. Hurstwood will bring her the life of the high class society and a large number of money for her make-up. Finally she leaves Drouet and is passively seduced by Hustwood. She seeks for happiness, especially material happiness. Though there are changes in her life, she realizes that money, reputation and beautiful clothes cannot bring happiness to her and the individual satisfaction is only a dream. As the novel described: Carrie soon found that a little money brought her nothing. The world of wealth and distinction was quite as far as ever. She could feel that there ware no warm, sympathetic friendships. All of them seem to be seeking their own interests and amusement, regardless of the possible sad consequence to others.

The tragedy of Carrie is that she equals material and reputation to happiness , thus separates the imaginary society from the real society. It seemed that her passionate desire had came true eventually. However,at the end of the novel,she is still sitting in the rocking-chair dreaming her own happiness.The main reason for her fate is the strong desire for a better life.

 

3. Comment

   Theodore Dreiser lived during the alternation of 19th and 20th century when the doctrines of the consumptionism and hedonism were widely accepted. As capitalist industry developed rapidly, on the one hand, commodity economy provided people an enormous material enjoyment in life, on the other hand destroyed the natural living conditions and eroded people’s spiritual and emotional life. The whole society in that time was stuffed with fanatical material persuit and sick money worship. The personal spiritual system as well as the whole social spiritual system were broken down.

Sister Carrie is just an epitome of the deforming society and individuals. This is a tragedy about a girl’s pursuit of better life and her lost in pursuit of it. As a gril from a low paid family in a little countryside, pure and pretty, timid and simple, Carrie boarded the train for Chicago in order to seek for her dream. However, when the train to Chicago arrives, her train of desires does never stop. She never satisfies with current situation, and never stops pursuing a better goal, that is, she is totally lost in substance. There are many reasons shaping her desires.

First of all, the effect of American social situation.

 There was a profound change in American society between the late 19th and early 20th century. It was the convert of the ideology and awareness since the political stability after the civil war. With the rapid development of economy, industrialization and urbanization reaching an unprecedented level, the commodity presented diversity. In order to get a further economic development, American had to maximize the groups of consumers. Therefore, a bad culture of competing with each other and enlarging the circle of extravagant consumers rised. The moral standard of this culture was the ability to build estates, to buy expensive clothes, and man were proud of possessing attracting and beautiful women. Therefore, people should follow the drives of the trend, “As consumers who will treat enjoyment as their own duty, and treat enjoyment and satisfaction as a career.”

   Many people regard Carrie as a”dangerous beauty”. They impute Hurstwood’s death to Carrie, if she was not so cold blooded, if she was not so vain, and if she could enjoy present life… Hurstwood could not change from a gentleman to a begger. However, under this kind of environment, Carrie naturally aspired to possess materials, especially those new clothes and beautiful jewelry. She expected to use these items to improve her value and social status. thus she was firmly convinced that pursuit of material satisfaction was very important when she saw the glittering array in the store. After she arrived Chicago, the various commodities, accessories, clothing, shoes, stationery, jewelry, etc. in the window, caught Carrie’s eyes. She viewed all of these with envy because her shabby clothes and small suitcase just showed her humble position. she was tortured by the consciousness of her identity—outsider, and frustrated by the fact that she couldn’t possess what she wanted. Although her pretty face and elegant figure conquered many men, those well-dressed beautiful wives looked down upon her. She was subconsciously aware that the city provided women with all the things—wealth, fashion and comfort, which made them look much more attractive. At the same time, she came to learn that people judged people with their appearance unconsciously. It was undoubtedly a consumer-center society. The clothes were a sort of social language, expressing the status and wealth of people. So consuming conception greatly embodied in Carrie’s endless desires.

   There’s no denying that the dress sometimes is not only something protecting us from cold, but also a symbol, by which people could tell which social group others belong to. As a rural girl who came from remote areas alone, Carrie was inevitably judged by people around her about her social status and social class. People in the citizen never made friends with the poor and humble contryside girl, however beautiful the girl was. They wouldn’t show their respect to a girl from the bottom of the society, whatever good quality she had, either. But her simple dress implied her low social status, thus she decided to change her destiny.

   Secondly, the influences of individuals

   Carrie is sensitive and self-based, but she is arrogant as well. she hates the citizens who scoff her often, meanwhile, she eagers to be a member of them. Her desires are stimulated by a group of people.

   The first one who inflences Carrie is Drouet. In fact, Drouet himself is a good advertisement –“fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common yellow agates, known as ‘cat’s-eyes’…” (Dreiser, Sister Carrie 3). He liked flirting with some fashionable and beautiful women in the street and remarking upon their appearance. His blandishments and humor evoked Carrie’s desire to live a luxury life in Chicago and come into the first-class society. By seeing the fashion decorated with valuable materials and uncountable money, Carrie obscurely felt that she was in the center of the wealth. In such a metropolis as Chicago, Carrie was gradually lost, physically and then mentally.One of Carrie’s characteristics was the good ability of comprehension, which made her find rules of beauty from the repeated praise, and imitate secretly.

   Another woman who had great influence on Carrie was her neighbor Mrs Haier. Mrs Haier often spoke highly of wealth and status, which made great contribute to Carrie’s knowledge of wealth rank.

   Sister Carrie’s neighbor Mrs. Vance also brought tremendous change for her life after she arrived in New York. Mrs. Vance walked on Broadway with Carrie, and helped Carrie broaden her horizons. There were not only women who would like to show off their charm and beauty, but also men who admired beauty. Carrie found some handsome men and well-dressed ladies stared at Mrs. Vance cunningly, though she was adored by some gentleman who wore fit coat and top hat and held silver cane in their hand. But she felt that she was not a member of this street. Compared with Mrs. Vance,  Carrie found herself far from Mrs. Vance in whatever aspect. This deeply hurted her pride. So Carrie decided she would never came here once more unless dressed.  This clearly implicated Carrie’s mental state: she aspired to wear beautiful clothes and show off in publicity. Therefore, through this stroll Carrie deeply realized the importance of clothes and ornaments.

   Besides the above relevant factors, Sister Carrie’s desire has much to do with her own vanity and indulgence. At the beginning of the novel, Dreiser had pointed out the character of Carrie: “she had learnt to feel sorry for herself. Soon she understood the creature comfort. She dreamed a meteoric rise without any background.”

   The main reason why she felt the factory was hard to bear is that she had used to life at a slower pace in the country. She never wanted to herself in such drab factories. In her imagination, salary should be generous, environment should be elegant. Accordingly it can be assumed that she would resign voluntarily even though she may not caught a cold or been sick.

   These desires drove her to buy new products, to consume new products, to satisfy her vanity and enjoy value of ascension from luxury goods. But this happiness is temporary. For new luxury would emerge when she got the goods before, she would be drove by a new desire. More luxury would bring more desires. This weird cycle illustrated the characters of modern consumption—inappeasable and endless. No wonder that Carrie will never be conternt with her present situation, and she will never fulfill her desires.

 

 

 

 

4. Conclusion:

    Although this novel is intended to disclosure the corruption and money worship of the American society, it also has realistic significance. In our modern society, it is glutted with various evil desires, fanatical material persuit and sick money worship. As the increasing distance between the poor and the rich in China, an unhealthy culture and trend prevail. There are a large number of people existing the psychology of comparing with others. They aspire to have more beautiful clothes, more gorgeous estates and more money than any other in the world. These people have their own dream—making money. They also have their own god—money. They worship money and status, and insist that luxury  lifestyle and enjoyment is the carrer and duty of their life. As for the poor, there is a contridictory, that is, they hate and envy people in the high class society, but eager to be a member of them as well. They want to have beautiful clothing, commodious houses and higher social status. Nevertheless, the rich and the poor are both lost in substance. They over pursue the enjoyment of materials and desert the garden of the spirit.

    All in all, shortening the distance between the rich and the poor is the urgent affair for all over the world.

Focus on Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The reason I choose the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The first time I read this book was in my senior high school. When I saw the name of this book, I thought it must be a book talked about an old man but kind and gracious. He may often tell some miracle and legend and other kinds of stories to the children around. However, as far as I read the introduction of the book, I extremely shocked by the miserable lives of the slaves, so I got this book. In this democratic and equal society we can’t imagine the picture of the hard-working blacks. Even if they devoted themselves totally to their masters they can’t get a worthy reward. In that time, they doomed to be slaves, to be low lives. They had no choice but to endure until the God taking them home. It’s their only belief.

Focus on Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Brief Introduction of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel “helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War“, according to Will Kaufman. Stowe focused the novel on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of other characters—both fellow slaves and slave owners—revolve. The sentimental novel depicts the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as enslavement of fellow human beings. The book’s emotional portrayal of the impact of slavery captured the nation’s attention. It added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. She wrote more than 20 books, including novels; three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings and her public stands on social issues of the day.

One day, Stowe unconsciously went into a plantation ofKentuckyand witnessed the full horror of the slaves, which was so touching and sentimental. Even when she took her child in her arms, it could remind her of the little girl’s crying, just because she was a black so that she couldn’t enjoy the life as well as a white. When she lay in her warm bed, it could remind her of the shabby house of the poor slaves and the drudgeries. So she has been haunting with a voice in mind “write all this out please, whether you have talent or not, this phenomenon should be revealed to help those poor guys.” Then Stowe dedicated herself to this slave-focused novel. As it were, this novel somewhat embody the conflict between the write and black.

Plot

Uncle Tom, a slave on the Shelby plantation, due to the Shelby’s kindness He lives satisfactorily with his wife and children in their own cabin. However, Mr. Shelby had to sell he and Harry because his debts. A slave trader, named Haley, bought them. Tom is devastated but vows that he will not run away, while Harry’s mother Eliza takes him and runs away. Eventually, she escapes successfully so does her husband George. Tom befriends his new master and especially his young daughter Eva, unfortunately the girl died because of her illness and her father dies tragically in an accident. Then Tom is sold again to Legree's plantation. Legree has planned to turn Tom into a brutal overseer, however, Tom’s kindness can't allow him to do this. At last, Legree becomes enraged and takes out his wrath on Tom. Tom also helps two women who Legree caring to escape and he died because of this event.

Key words

“Slavery”, “love”, “Bible”

Analysis of the Characters

a main characters

Uncle Tom—he is commonly seen as a noble, long-suffering praiseworthy Christian slave.

He is also a fairly honest and sincere piety. InShelby’s estate, he becomes a supervisor after taking good care of his master since he was a little boy. Tom pays more attention to his self-cultivation so that he is treated as a priest among the slaves around, especially to the slaves’ spiritual redemption. When he knows that he will be sold, he accepts it peacefully. Putting others at the first place and replacing others to suffer the distress, he lives as the Jesus. As the stories unfolding, we can find the spirit of the Jesus. In this book, Tom suffers the misery from exploitation, but he still insists in his own belief, at last even his enemy shows respect to him. When others encourage him to resist and escape, he claims that his responsibility is to service his host. In Legree’s plantation, the torment on both physical and mental can’t change his Christian belief. His experience in somewhat is similar to the experience of the Jesus. Obviously, Tom is a black martyr of Christian.

   In Tom’s last minutes, his words express clearly what love is” I loves ‘em all! I lovesevery creatur, everywhar!—it’s nothing but love! Oh, Mas’r George, what a thing ‘t is to be a Christian!”¹ So he is the incarnation of love. Tom is honest to the god, the master, so however difficult the situation is, he won’t betray his soul. He says that his soul belongs to the god, when confronting with Legree’s threatened and lash, he never changes his belief. Even if he has the chance to escape, he does nothing but staying there.

Patience is also the characteristic of Tom. He forgives everyone, even two cruel bullies. His death rouses the bullies’ conscience and leads them to become Christian. When it comes to talking about Legree, he says that “He an’t done me no real harm,—only opened the gate of kingdom for me; that’s all!”²

The role of Tom is initially written as missionary. He hasn’t been educated, thus can’t write anything, but influenced by Mrs.Shelby, he is proud of being a Christian. The Bible becomes his entertainment and spirit. I remember one scene that Tom prevents Cassy from killing Legree. There are about 70 sites cited from the Bible. So it’s really fair to say that Tom plays the role of missionary. His name has become an epithet directed towards African-Americans who are accused of selling out to whites. Throughout the book, far from allowing himself to be exploited, Tom stands up for his beliefs and is grudgingly admired even by his enemies.

Eva, is the daughter of Augustine St. Clare. She is also an cleric, from the name we can know that Eva is a pure and beautiful angel. She represents the angel. In this book, Eva  differs from other children. Actually, she is very cute, beautiful and she is always in white. Her cloth is clear just as her pure soul. “There was about it an undulating and aerial grace, suah as one might dream of for some mythic and allegorical being. Her face was remakable lee for its perfec beauty of feature than for a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression, which made the ideal start when they looked at her, and by which the dullest and most literal were impressed, without exactly knowing why.”³ Spiritually speaking, she is full of the thought of philanthropy like the angel in Bible. Once her father asked her whether she likes living with her uncle’s family or her own family with a number of slaves, she answered absolutely it’s her own family because there are so many people to love. The reason that she buys Tom is that she want Tom to be happy. When she heard Prue’s miserable story, she felt grieved and sad. In he eyes, there are so many things difficult to understand why Pure is unhappy, or why Tom gets separate from his wife and children, why nobody loves the little black girl-Topsy. What she knows is to love the people around and her name has already conveyed the meaning to us. Eva brings gospel to each slave in her manor, as well as hope and love, and prompts his father’s transformation. Eva has no discrimination against other race and feels distressed about slave – holding society. In her mind, everyone should be equal, not only the slave-holders, but also the slaves. She says that if her death could relief the pains of the slaves, she would do it willingly. She hopes to die for the slaves also like Jesus. When she expresses her love to naughty Tospy “ Oh,Topsy, poor child, I love you!” Yes, in that moment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul!“⁴ She constantly talks about love and forgiveness, even convincing the dour slave girl Topsy that she deserves love. She even touches the heart of her sour aunt, Ophelia. Eventually Eva falls terminally ill. Before dying, she gives a lock of her hair to each of the slaves, telling them that they must become Christians so that they may see each other in Heaven.

Eva seemed to be an innocent child telling her family and the world about how she saw slavery which exposed a lot of its evils. But when she turned into a mini Jesus and preached to the slaves before her death as Jesus had preached the disciples before his death, I felt the author had given to too great of a “jump into maturity ” to be believable, unless the short life of Eva was really supposed to be a unreal miracle occurrence. Eva was powerful enough as a real character that looks at slavery from innocent eyes. In her last minutes, she allots her hair to each slave to show her love companying them forever and she wants them to become Christians so that they will meet in the heaven in the future. Eva is too weak to exist in this world, and she doesn’t belong to this world. She is just coming for breeding love. Her purity isn’t compatible with this society. Through Eva’s death, Stowe hits hardly about sin of slavery and calls for the abolishing of the immorality of the slavery.

Eliza，she is a beautiful half-bred slave and brought up by Mrs. Shebly. Her whole love is putting on her only child Harry. When she knows Harry will be sold, she is so worried and she knows clearly the only way is to escape. I can never forget the scene that Eliza jumping through the river with the ice. She is also a sincere Christian and firmly believes in god that the god will rescue them when they are in trouble. Eliza is a controversy character, respectful to his master and god, but her beloved child is got threaten, she has to make choice, and her maternal love beyond her honesty. At last, she escapes with her five-year old son Harry after he is sold to Mr. Haley. Her husband, George, eventually finds Eliza and emigrates with them toCanada.

Simon Legree, Legree is the incarnation and symbol of devil. He is as ferocious, hateful as snake. He trains his slaves, beats them and turns some of them to become bully. He is strong and sturdy. He also raises some dogs which are just as ferocious as he himself. Even his mother fell unconsciously, he kept ignorant of her. He is a cruel slave owner, whose name has become synonymous with greed. He is arguably the novel’s main antagonist. His goal is to demoralize Tom and break him of his religious faith; he eventually orders Tom whipped to death out of frustration for his slave’s unbreakable belief in God. The novel reveals that, as a young man, he had abandoned his sickly mother for a life at sea, and ignored her letter to see her one last time at her deathbed.

The mothers in Uncle Tom’s cabin

Stowe portrays several ideal images of mothers, such as St. Clare’s mother, Legree’s mother, Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Shelby. These mothers are as sincere, pure, gentle and ideal as Maria.

St. Clare’s mother is a noble -minded woman, she is against the slavery, shows her sympathy to the poor blacks. She had been keeping drumming this viewpoint into St. Clare. So St. Clare becomes a kind and gentle master, and lavishes the slaves in his manor.

Legree’s mother educated his son with love and patient, however, Legree is furious, imperious and he despises his mother’s thought, even treats nothing serious about hie mother’s advise. So his behavior derails his mother’s efforts.

Mrs.Bird is an easy-to-be-flush woman. A beautiful woman with a pair of blue eyes, they are so gentle as the pure water, and sweet voice. But when it comes to the topic of slave, she is full of rage and fury. She said “once I have the chance, I will absolutely do what I can to help those poor guys.”  So when Eliza and Harry need help, she seizes the chance to help them as the god’s willing.

Mrs.Shelby is a kind-hearted woman. She wants to change the slaves’ working condition through kindness, care and education. She is extremely angry about her husband’s action but she can’t do anything. She only hope one day Tom will back.

From the above we know these mothers hate the slave system because it betrays the doctrine of Christian. They are the spiritual leader of their husbands or sons.

b. Other characters

Augustine St. Clare, Tom’s second owner and father of Eva. He is the most sympathetic slave-owners in the novel. St. Clare is complex, often sarcastic, with a ready wit. St. Clare recognizes the evil in slavery, but is not willing to relinquish the wealth it brings him. After his daughter’s death he becomes more sincere in his religious thoughts. He plans on finally taking action against slavery by freeing his slaves, but his good intentions ultimately come to nothing.

Topsy,  A “ragamuffin” young slave girl. When asked if she knows who made her, she professes ignorance of both God and a mother, saying “I s’pect I growed. Don’t think nobody never made me.” She is transformed by Little Eva’s love.

Miss Ophelia, is Augustine St. Clare’s pious, hard-working, abolitionist cousin fromVermont. She displays the ambiguities towards African-Americans felt by many Northerners at the time. She argues against the institution of slavery yet, at least initially, feels repulsed by the slaves as individuals.

Personal impression

My first reaction to this book is that it was based much more on religion than I had imagined it to be. As I expected, Stowe’s main purpose of the book was to nakedly expose the institution of slavery toAmericaand the rest of the world with the hopes that something would be done about it. To achieve this purpose, she showed us individual instances of slavery in a country that prided itself on its Christianity and its laws protecting freedom. She showed us how absurd slavery is “beneath the shadow of American laws and the shadow of the cross of Christ.”

I am also surprised at the various kinds of relationships between whites and blacks of the South. We learn that not all whites were bad and not all blacks were good, but that there were quite a mixture of characters and relationships. That was strength of the book. It’s not a melodrama, but shows an evil institution which allows both good and evil and all those in between to exist under it, and how this institution affects the individuals. Legree’s plantation, for instance, corrupted anyone who came there. But the reader understands that it is the system that allows this which is the root of the problem, and that, by the way is a North/South problem, not just a Southern problem. She specifically calls on the North at the end of the book to ask them if they can live with the institution of slavery in their country and still call themselves Christians.

One major theme in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the evil and immorality of slavery. While Stowe weaves other sub themes throughout her text, such as the moral authority of motherhood and the redeeming possibilities offered by Christianity, she emphasizes the connections between these and the horrors of slavery. Stowe pushed home her theme of the immorality of slavery on almost every page of the novel, sometimes even changing the story’s voice so she could give a “homily” on the destructive nature of slavery.

 Stowe saw motherhood as the “ethical and structural model for all of American life,” She also believed that only women had the moral authority to save the United States from the demon of slavery, another major theme of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the moral power and sanctity of women. Through characters like Eliza, who escapes from slavery to save her young son, or Little Eva, who is seen as the “ideal Christian”, Stowe shows how she believed women could save those around them from even the worst injustices. While later critics have noted that Stowe’s female characters are often domestic clichés instead of realistic women, Stowe’s novel “reaffirmed the importance of women’s influence” and helped pave the way for the women’s rights movement in the following decades.

Stowe’s puritanical religious beliefs show up in the novel’s final, over-arching theme – the exploration of the nature of Christianityand how she feels Christian theology is fundamentally incompatible with slavery. This theme is most evident when Tom urges St. Clare to “look away to Jesus” after the death of St. Clare’s beloved daughter Eva. After Tom dies, George Shelby eulogizes Tom by saying, “What a thing it is to be a Christian.” Because Christian themes play such a large role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin—and because of Stowe’s frequent use of direct authorial interjections on religion and faith—the novel often takes the “form of a sermon.”

In the Throes of War

Why did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

1. I read the Chinese version of the book in my middle school and it left a deep first impression on me.

2. I read the English version again and have sought the distinctive and overwhelming feelings towards it.

3. It is a masterpiece by the famous author Ernest Hemingway who I appreciated all the time.

4. The theme on the brutal of the war touched me a lot. Especially in current society, wars and insurgents still breaks out now and then, viciously destroying the stability of the world and betraying the doctrine of humanitarian.

5. I am inclined to the subjects and this kind of book

Title

Abstract：

     During a few decades of last century, two world wars broke out consecutively, under this background, Ernest Hemingway, one of the most famous novelists in the history of western literature, wrote his masterpiece in which the author deals with the war directly. Seeing from the human value scale, Hemingway examined the war as an outrage against humanity. Living in a chaotic and disorder world, people made great efforts to fight against their destiny, nevertheless, doomed to trap in the mire of pessimism and failure. This thesis focuses on analyzing Henry’s complex personality, the journey of Henry as well as the tragic ending from which we’ll form more profound ideas on Hemingway’s mysterious life.

Key word:  Hemingway; character; war; love; pessimism.

Title

1. Brief Introduction of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American writer and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as “the Lost Generation.” He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway’s distinctive writing style is characterized by short and terse sentences; simple diction often filled with emotion, vivid colloquialism and the simplicity of statements, and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth-century fiction writing. His protagonists are typically stoical men who exhibit an ideal described as “grace under pressure.” Many of his works are now considered classics of American literature. In the war- torn forties, Hemingway worked as correspondent in china, and in the air over France, and on the Normandybeach, on behalf of anti-fascist causes. He came back to Cubaafter the war, but the decade of the forties was one of silence until the publication of his text novel, Across the River and Into the Tress, which was less widely praised. His last work of fiction a poignant novelette in face, the Old Man and the Sea regained significantly in reputation and won for him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 due to his “mastery of the art of modern narration.”  In his last years he wrote little except for a memoir of his early life in Paris, A Moveable Feast, posthumously published in 1964. when the Cuban revolution broke out, Hemingway leftCuba in November, 1960 forKetchum,Idaho, theU.S.A. during the last eight months of his life he suffered both from serious illness and from emotional breakdown, which made him haunted by the impression that his inspiration had deserted him and his literary talent was nearly exhausted. On the early morning of July 2, 1960, following his father’s example, he shot himself with his favorite shotgun.

 2. Plot

Lieutenant Frederic Henry was a young American attached to an Italian ambulance unit on the Italian front. An offensive soon began, and when Henry returned to the front from leave he learnt from his friend Lieutenant Rinaldi, that a group of British nurses had arrived in his absence to set up a British hospital unit. Rinaldi introduced him to nurse Catherine Barkley. The two soon fell in love with each other. Before Henry left for the front to stand by for an attack, Catherine gave him a St. Anthony medal. At the front, as Henry and some Italian ambulance drivers were eating in a dugout, an Austrian projectile explored over them. Henry, badly wounded in the legs, was taken to a field hospital. Later he was moved to a hospital inMilan. During he was in hospital, Catherine often came to his word, which helped Henry getting rid of his restless and loneliness. After his operation, Henry convalesced inMilanwith Catherine Barkley as his attendant. Together they dined in out of the way restaurants, and together they rode about the countryside in a carriage. Summer passed into autumn. Henry’s wound had healed and he was due to take convalescent leave in October. He and Catherine planned to spend the leave together, but he came down with jaundice before he could leave the hospital. Before he recovered and ready to leave for the front, Henry and Catherine stayed together in the hotel room, already she had disclosed to him that she was a pregnant. When Henry returned the battlefield, the war was going badly inItaly. The German troops forced a full-scale retreat. Then Henry deserted the war in a daring escape. He left and met Catherine in Stresa. The two went over toSwitzerlandwhere they spent an idyllic time waiting for the birth of their baby. Catherine had had a long and difficult labor. Their baby was delivered dead. Catherine died soon after from “one hemorrhage after another”. After Catherine‘s death, Henry left and walked back to his hotel.

3. Character Analysis

In order to make a better character analysis of Frederic Henry, I want to first briefly analyze other main characters that helped the development of the story and foiled the man in the novel.

Catherine Barkley: a British Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse. She loves the males so much that she started to write a short story about her love affairs with her fiancé, who since has passed away. She volunteered in the war at the same time her fiancé of eight years joined the army. He was killed in theBattle of theSomme. She is originally fromScotland, emotional, and dependent upon Henry’s love for her. Her sexual desires and her simple desire for companionship are sometimes at odds with her needs to tend to the ill. Like the code hero, she handles conflicting needs with grace, giving to both, but shorting none. Feminist thinkers will see in Catherine, Hemingway’s perfect woman: wise and cynical in many ways, her wisdom cannot contain her desire. As Henry gives his health and youth to the war effort, Catherine’s chief heroism is to accept the pain and death of childbirth stoically.

Rinaldi: a physician through whom Hemingway draws his idea of an Italian male. Rinaldi is unfailingly exuberant, ignoring small details that would stop his large and giving gestures. He loves women and alcohol, bearing a bottle of the latter and tales of the former to his friend Henry as Henry recovers from his wounds. He enjoys performing surgery, seeing it as an enjoyable challenge; he greets his friend Frederic Henry with a formal European-style kiss. He usually refers to Henry as “baby”. Rinaldi is a form of the code hero as well. He allows Hemingway to explore another, non-Anglo-American, way of being male, of facing even a difficult world, an injuredItaly, with joie de vivre, ignoring all danger, giving himself. Henry reunites with a tired and syphilitic Rinaldi in the middle of the novel, illustrating the flaws of this approach to the war and to life.

Helen Ferguson: Helen is Catherine’s friend. She is very protective of Catherine and is angry with Henry for getting Catherine pregnant. In the end, she accepts the union because it is what Catherine wants. Hemingway based her on Kitty Cannell (1891 – 1974), an acquaintance of his who was a Paris-based American dance and fashion correspondent for major U.S. papers and periodicals.

Now I should focus on the main character—Frederic Henry to express my own feelings.

Frederic Henry: He is an American volunteer on the Italian front. People with entirely different backgrounds from his own surround him. Even the woman he falls in love with comes from a culture very different from American culture. Henry is the first embodiment of what became known as Hemingway’s code hero: he is stoic when threatened or when in pain, he maintains his composure when under fire, he does his work with as little fuss as possible; he is a man’s man whose primary interests seem to be drinking and women. He participates in and seems to enjoy the banal, everyday conversation between the soldiers. He is attracted to the simple goodness of the priest, who, like Henry (who is not religious), sticks to his beliefs despite the war’s constant presence. Henry is most characterized throughout the novel by his passionate love and dedication to Catherine Barkley.

4. Comment:

After reading the novel, a sense of sorrow stole over me. Catherine’s death of difficult delivery, Henry’s desperate figure walking through the pouring rain, all these scenes haunted me into deep thought: In the throes of war, how would we change. Everywhere we look, we see piles of rubble where houses used to stand and lifeless bodies that once moved around with the joy of life inside them. Everything onto our eyes is flowing with flooded blood and suffocated indifference. Everything falls on our ears is the sounds of bombs exploding, crippling those people on their way. The coldness of the captains, showing none of the sympathy for the life of innocent civilians, the indifference of the soldiers, slaughtering blindly without any consideration on human values, this is the battlefield flooded with merciless and bloodshed. No democracy, no compassionate heart, darkness overwhelmed the battlefront; sorrow enveloped the vicinity of the war. You never know whether you have received a one-way ticket to death, you never know whether you have another chance to experience the carefree lifestyle. Under the backdrop of the brutal war, Henry from an enthusiastic young people coming with an air of confidence and eagerness developed into a hopeless, desperate and pessimistic victim. He trapped into the deadlock of depression and confusion; he began to wonder why war has to be the way problems are solved. War just creates more problems. He can not figure out why the war was so rampant that everything seems to run into horrible hatreds. He can not understand when would be the end of the war since rains of combats and bombs had leaded people escape to nowhere but doomed to a sea of blood. He is too weak to stop the war; he is too insignificant to fight with the suck nightmare. “People like ants on a log, a fire, then one after another into the other end, finally perished in the flames.” This is the typical portrayal of the lost generation dropped into the mire of the abyss of the war. They tried, they made great efforts to find a way out, they kept their strong will and faith, they refused to abandon hope even in the despair, nevertheless, the war prevent them from moving forward with full of passion and hope. In the face of chaos and insurgency, even love withdraws in a timid gesture. Love is suppose to be the most powerful weapon to fight against with all the adversity and difficulties, but confronted with war; it seems the principle became an indefensible assumption.

In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the “war to end all wars”. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experiences came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway’s description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer and the men and women he meets in Italy with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war; in it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.

Thus the love between Henry and Catherine is another important line in the novel. The war has a great impact on changing of people’s personalities. At the very beginning, when Henry first meets Catherine, he is not looking for love, but rather something to pass the time and someone for him to care for. He is a naive young man and had no concept of what he is doing. So he pretends to love Catherine, he does this just because he needs someone to hold on and give him meaning. Later, when their relationship develops and Catherine becomes a pregnant and Henry deserts the army to reunite with her. When Catherine lies in pain in the hospital, he finally begins to see her as a human and realize that she is everything to him. This is when Henry realizes that she is all that he has. He realizes that she is the true meaning in his life. After they have undergone so many hardships, and overcome enormous adversities, the couple finally began to cherish each other as one. However, the novel seems to doom with a tragic ending, Catherine’s death and Henry walking back to the hotel in the rain permeated with sense of helpless and pessimism. Here, the rain may be interpreted as the powerful and indifferent universe. And the love between Henry and Catherine, although was also very powerful, but finally was defeated by it.

In a sense, the novels of Hemingway seem less important than his influence as a craftsman, for his style of writing is striking; characterized by short and terse sentences, simple diction often filled with emotion, vivid colloquialisms, and particularly the simplicity of his laconic statements like Mark Twain’s in Huckleberry Finn. Hemingway, to a certain extent, wiped out the demarcation line between journalism and literature. This laconic but expressive style Hemingway evolved on the basis of his belief that “the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one eighth of it being above water” was well suited to evoke the stoical courage of his characteristic subjects: men who face lonely and thankless tasks, his subjects and his themes spoke for the lost Generation. Due to the profound impact of World War I, Hemingway’s works are cynical and disillusioned, his characters become involved in war, in the competitive games such as hunting or bullfighting which demand stamina and courage, and are “ tough”, courageous, and honest, but broken physically by the brutality of war and disillusioned by the insensitivity and hollowness of civilized society.

     The novel concerns itself primarily with the development of Hemingway’s philosophy of life; he believed that universe is unordered one. There is no god to watch over man, to dictate codes of morality, or to ensure justice. Instead, the universe is indifferent to man’s plight. In this novel, this indifference is best exemplified by the war. There are no winners in a war; there is no reasoning behind the lives which are taken. Even love can become a victim of the war. The novel has taken its toll on the ruthless of the war, which made me feel more appreciate on our current peaceful life and forged a more sorrow mind on the pain the people in Middle East has suffered from the endless precarious life. If only we were living in a world without the disturbance of insecure factors, but filled with love, peace and warmth. A farewell to arms, a newcomer of a hopeful world.

Conclusion:

Totally, A Farewell to Arms has two themes, one is war, the other is love, but, Hemingway didn’t divide them into two ways, he combined them. And the novel vividly presented the state of lost generation after the world war, who experimented on new modes of thought and expression by rebelling against former ideals and values and replacing them only by despair pr a cynical hedonism. Apart from that, another main thematic patterns of the work is the Hemingway Code Hero, those who survive and perhaps emerge victorious in the process of seeking to master the code with a set of principles such as honor, courage, endurance, wisdom, discipline and dignity are hailed as a hero. In the chaos and tension of the battles, Henry is always fighting desperately, which leaves a deep impression on readers’ minds of the image of the people in those arduous situations. A Farewell to Arms is really a masterpiece worth your in-depth reading and researching.

Sister Carrie

Key words

   Sister Carrie, love affair, Chicago, vanity

The reason for choosing the book:

I was attracted by the title: Sister Carrie

 

1. Brief Introduction of Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)

The writer was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. Raised in poverty and in a German-speaking environment, he left home for Chicago at age 16. After a period of odd jobs and a year at the University of Indiana, he became a Midwestern newspaper reporter and, in New York after 1894, a magazine feature writer. Sister Carrie (1900), his first and still highly regarded novel, was withheld from general distribution because of its supposed amorality, and its commercial failure plunged him into financial distress and mental breakdown (1904). He later re-established himself as a magazine editor and self-published a second, successful edition of Sister Carrie (1907). The success of the novel Jennie Gerhardt (1911) allowed him to write full time, and The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914) followed. These novels were ungainly in style but ground-breaking in their naturalism and critique of American capitalist society. The withdrawal from distribution, on moral grounds, of his autobiographical novel, The Genius (1915), ignited a national anti-censorship campaign supported by most of the leading literary figures of the day. His next decade, marked by an energetic output of plays, stories, memoirs, and travel books, culminated in An American Tragedy (1925), a major popular success despite its bleak view of American values. He publicly supported left-wing causes through the 1930s and 1940s, and propounded Socialist ideas in his late works, joining the Communist Party shortly before his death. He had also returned to writing novels, two of which, The Bulwark (1946) and The Stoic (1947), were among his various works published posthumously. As insensitive in his treatment of the English language as he was of many women in his life, he seems destined to survive as a major American writer.

2. Plot

Sister Carrie, the heroin, is a beautiful, pure girl at the age of 18 from the country came to her dream big cities in the novel. She hopes that she can find a job in Chicago and starts a life of happiness. But Chicago is not the heaven imagined, here are all “sweatshop”. She managed to find a job in a shoe factory and does as an assembly line worker. The low income is difficult for her to support herself. Because of a bad cold, she had to leave to rest, Sister Carrie lose the job. Living in her sister and brother-in-law’ house, she fails to pay for the meals.  The brother-in-law’s attitude is very cold, hoping she coming back home. However, she doesn’t want to go back, but nowhere to go, finally has to accept the help from one young handsome salesman, Drouet. The two people cohabitate. Then Carrie settles down and no longer has to worry about the food thing. Lately, she gets acquainted with a hotel manager, Hurstwood, who behaves gentlemanly and is successful in his career. The youth and beauty touch his heart. For Carrie, she thinks Hurstwood is more attractive than her current boyfriend. So they fall in love.

Hurstwood is somewhat upset with his wife, but all his personal property is under her name. Accidentally, he stole a large sum of money from his hotel workplace. Though he regrets immediately, it’s late and he has to cheat the Carrie to flee to New York, hoping they can live together forever. Hurstwood realizes that he has done something stupid and sends most of the money back. In New York, they don’t leave a bounteous life, and finally all their money is spent. Hurstwood can’t find the job to make the ends meet and life is in a mess. So Carrie has to go out and luckily to find a small role in a troupe. Gradually, Carrie is economically independent. She feels Hurstwood is a burden and determines to leave him. The ending of the story is distinctively different for the both. Carrie seizes some sudden opportunities and become a household name with affluent wealth, while Hurstwood suffers the feeling of a loser and sinks into the constant recall of the splendor of past, making a living by begging and eventually commits suicide. Carrie leads a material life she has once dreamt but feels rather lonely in heart.

3. Character analysis-Carrie

 The time Carrie comes to Chicago she is still innocent and full of fantasy. Anticipating the appearance of Drouet, as well as being disturbed by the embarrassing situation, Carrie writes a letter to inform him not to visit at her sister’ house. A girl with a strong sense of pride is depicted. The first challenge for Carrie is to find a job in Chicago. As a green hand, it’s not easy. She wishes to earn more than6 aweek. But after a day of tedious hunting for a living, she seems to compromise the harsh reality. Having job is the first, the importance of the wage fades. This is the first stroke for a girl with a wish for the wonderful prospective.

 Carrie accepts the work as a shoe maker. Too much early expectations, fancies and disturbed by the realistic harsh sordid working hours, she revolts and subdues. The smelly workshops, rubbish-like circumstances, disgusting workmates and the alerting young men tortured her. When passed by the well-dressed ladies, she stings and envies. A girl distinguishes persons by clothes or material enjoyment does suffer the most under this circumstance.

 Carrie determines not to mingle with the low-class, rude workmates, men or women. On the other hand, her resentment for her department seems to be revealed. The brother-in-law seems to do all his mental operations without the aid of physical expression, as still as a deserted chamber. Carrie has the blood of youth and some imagination, full of ideas of love relationships and courtships. She can think of things she would like to do, of the clothes she would like to wear and of places she would like to go. However, the couple tries to convey their life theory to her-toil and save. The degree of the discontentment in Carrie’ mind rockets.

The first important man

Then the first important man as a turning point comes in her life. Whether to lead a life with the poor couple or be a mistress of Drouet, she chooses the second and secretly leaves the struggling house as Carrie’s desire for vanity wins. Drouet is a man who secretly contrives his own plan to purse women, which is a chief delight for him. Firstly, Carrie sinks into misgiving thought, hesitation and mental struggle. In fact, the dilemma between the consciousness and desire lasts for a while. The strong will to live luxuriously overwhelms.

 Men always harbor evil ideas, so is Drouet. He is under the disguise of a kind-hearted man to clear the hinder on Carrie’s way. He is actually a hypocritical person in pursuit of woman. No doubt, Carrie’s beauty makes her the prey for him. Carrie, a girl without enough household principles, lost her innocence unconsciously and no longer a maiden. She seems to set on the road becoming a bitch. Though troubled by her phantoms about Mininne, her older sister, she has no retreat, for once on the way, always on the way, hunting for power and money, the vanity.

The second important man

The second important man, Hurstwood, walks into Carrie’s life then. There is a reserve in his manner towards the entire domestic economy of his life which is all that is comprehended by the popular term, gentlemanly. He would not argue, he would not talk freely. In his manner is the dogmatist. What he would not correct, he would ignore. There is tendency in him to walk away from the impossible things. From his perspective, a man, to hold his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a respectable home anchorage.

Though leading a creditable life with an honorable job in a so-called harmonious and happy life with two children, he is not satisfied. Life is boring and numb, in his heart. He envies what Drouet has. Actually, he is wiser than Drouet, only the eye-touching is able to light Carrie’s fire. And Carrie is also smarter than Drouet, learns more from Drouet and some others. She seems to have seized the rules in the vanity and slowly starts a new rule for her game.

Hurstwood flirts with Carrie, who is still tender enough and unable to cover her inner feeling towards others. Is Carrie troubled by his charm or just his power and money? Hurstwood is a skillful and daring man in some degree, without doubt, his life experience is more attractive to Carrie. Carrie, a girl aimed for material thing, shamed and driven by the significant constructions among houses, behaviors, communications, clothes, she is defenseless for the better. She is lost, the struggling moment weigh nothing.

Hurstwood, a man in his situation who comes, after a long round of worthless of hardening experiences, upon a young, unsophisticated, innocent soul, is apt either to hold aloof, out of a sense of his oven remoteness, or to draw near and become fascinated and elated by his discovery. He chooses the second. As Carrie comes fresh from the air of the village, the light of the country is still in her eye. Here is neither guile nor rapacity. There are slight inherited traits of both in her, but they are rudimentary. She is too full of wonder and desire to be greedy. All of these are felt by Hurstwood, especially the youth. Hurstwood is alive with thoughts and feelings concerning Carrie. Such anxiety and enthusiasm have not affected him for years. He is young again in feeling which makes Carrie irresistible.

Carrie finally becomes Hurstwood’s lover. The feeling of sympathy, the loneliness, the understanding from Hurstwood convinces her to be another mistress. She is still an innocent girl, as said, not sophisticated, experienced, she can’t figure out the best way. She cares no consequences. She knows she gets care and love in this indifferent city.

Between Carrie and Hurstwood, can there be love? A poor question. Carrie regards it as love. She would like to leave Drouet and runs into Hurstwood’s hug if Hurstwood wishes. Why Carrie chooses Hurstwood? Drouet seems to have no intention to marry her. At this moment, she gets connects with Hurstwood, the eye connection conveys the love messages. A matured man is really a killer for an innocent girl. Moreover, Carrie may be attracted more by his reputation, his position, his power and his money. To Hurstwood, the presence of Carrie reminds him of the enthusiasm. Carrie’s youth and beauty have awakened his desire, a lust. As all the men in the world will do, he makes some empty promises. He is somewhat evil, as the only aim is for the final pleasure. And what distinguishes Carrie from other girls is that she is not only young and beautiful, but she is also pure, innocent, kind, weak and to some degree having her own objection which raises her value.

Adding to Carrie’s charm is her vivid and touching performance, which is kindled by Drouet’s blind encouragement. Carrie possesses the sympathetic, impressionable nature which, ever in the most developed form, has been the glory of the drama. She is created with that passivity of soul which is always the mirror of the active world. She possesses an innate taste for imitation. She has a touch of vanity and feels that she will do things if she only has a chance. How often has she looked at the well-dressed actresses on the stage and wonders how she will look, how delightful she will feel if only she were in their places. Carrie’s life turning point is around the corner, a suitable ability and a great chance can make her a new way out in Chicago.

The story reveals Hurstwood’ strong discontentment with his wife as it goes on. Our self-love dictates our appreciation of the good or evil in another. He sees her wrinkle; perhaps, she is fading, while he is still preening himself in his elegance and youth. He is still an interested factor in the merry-makings of the world, but she doesn’t pursue the thought. The unhappy family is also a driving force for the love affair. But no secret can be kept forever. Mrs. Hurstwood seems to get informed of her husband’s suspicious behaviors. Based on jealousy, wrath, she triggers a fierce quarrel with him. She is well-grounded as many properties are under her name. She consults the lawyers and hires the detective to search the evidence in her favor. She has an edge in this battle. The managerial position counts a lot to Hursrwood. Any bad news associate with him can destroy his career and his social cirlcle. Losing the usual assurance, Mr. Hurstwood feels his power of dictation in the house seems to be taken. He is somewhat afraid of Mrs. Hurstwood for the properties problems. Hurstwood seems to be doom to pay for his merry-making deeds. He is too proud to lose any game, sparing efforts to figure the things out.

For the part of Carrie, she is in a more struggling situation. Hurstwood’s marriage slaps her face. She is deceived, as from the highest position of happiness jumps into the hell of anguish. She is not easy at that moment. Drouet still keeps a conscious sense at that moment and is not ready to lose Carrie based on vanity and jealousy. He tries to convince Carrie that wrongness is caused by herself. For Carrie, both of them are the ones who can save her from the harshness of life. She suffers poverty severely in the past. She decides not to live again.

The dramatic moment leads the story to another climax. Hurstwood, drawn by the lure of money and oppressed by his wife, desire for Carrie, he takes the money away as a thief and deceives Carrie to New York. Hurstwood loves Carrie for her beauty. In the new circumstance, he firstly secretly makes the ends meet all by himself. Ashamed of and fears any possibility to get across with his old friends. The life is not so comfortable as in Chicago. However, with Carrie nearby, he satisfied and works hard. Carrie, still an innocent girl, is fascinated at the new atmosphere and is happy to settle down and be familiar with the household things. The first year passed in peace.

As the payment increase, Hurstwood collects the old habits. He begins to enjoy the out world in the new place. From the first time not to dine with the lonely Carrie, he takes this for granted little by little. Love is not fresh as it begins. Carrie is sure she is not love Hurstwood, as no jealousy is aroused inside triggered by Hurstwood’s ignore. She tries to lead a life she satisfies. As the time goes on, either Hurstwood is stronger, healthier, wiser, as the youth approaching manhood, or he is growing weaker, older, less incisive mentally, as the man approaching old age. Hurstwood feels the wrinkles of the aging, while Carrie learns that man will change and fail. Flatter in its most palpable form has lost its force with her. Is requires superiority-kindly superiority- to move her- the superiority of a genius like Ames.

The third important man

Carrie comes across the third important man, Ames in her life. At this moment, Carrie realizes that the metropolis is a cold place and little money brings her nothing. She feels that there is no warm, sympathy and friendship back of the easy merriment with many approaches her. All seemed to be seeking their own assessment, regardless of the possible sad consequence to others, so much for the lessons from Hurstwood and Drouet. She is perplexed and anxious about this reality, hollow inside. It’s Ames who is smarter than Hurstwood and more candid than Drouet, with broad horizon. He conveys to Carrie the personal understanding of the life and the society, whose appearance impacts Carrie’s mind and shocks her inner feeling. He knows Carrie well, different from the men around her. Do as a good advisor, he help Carrie make her ideas and thoughts clear, being aware of the insufficient and the future direction. Aspired by his cultivation, Carrie tries to read in large amount and arms herself with the knowledge to get a better future. Ames contributes a lot in her performance. Carrie finally takes hold of some essence of the arts. The world is always struggling to express itself. Most people are not capable of voicing their feelings. They depend upon others. That is what genius is for. One man expresses their desires for them in music; another one in poetry; another one in a play. Sometimes nature does it in a face- it makes the face representative of all desire. With constantly learning, Carrie makes progresses and the artist career is raised to higher levels.

Distinctive from Carrie, Hurstwood, after all his money is spent and Carrie leaves, begins to find, in his wretched clothing and meager state of body, that people takes him for a chronic type of bum and beggar. Police hustles him along, restaurant and lodging-house keepers turn him out promptly the moment he has his due; pedestrians waves him off. Hopelessly he turns back into the Broadway again, begging, crying, losing track of his thoughts, one after another, as a mind decays.

5. Comment

  Throughout the struggle in Chicago and New York, Carrie just goes through the painful transition from a worm to a butterfly. She touches the harshness in life, confused over and learns from the human nature. In the crowded metropolis, people are just like the millions of ants, totally a picture of black looking down from a high position. Carrie survives in the material life with the additional help from the men coming across her life and innate gift.

Humanism in The Grapes of Wrath

Why did you choose this particular book? I chose this book because I like the author. The Grapes of Wrath is of course his epic masterpiece of social consciousness in its picture of helpless people crushed by drought and depression. Even here, though, as in all his works to follow, Steinbeck’s focus is upon man, the nature of man and his successes and failures, rather than upon the mere detached picture of an indifferent society, in contrast, for example, to some of Steinbeck’s immediate forerunners in a American fiction, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who depicted man simply as a wisp in the wind of giant American industrialism and stampeding capitalism. Humanism in The Grapes of Wrath Abstract： Humanism is one of the most important philosophical strands to be traced through The Grapes of Wrath. All the major characters in the novel seem to move from a religiously based to a humanly based philosophy of life in the novel. Additionally, the humanistic philosophy we find in The grapes of Wrath has been attributed to the influence of transcendental philosophy, Key word: humanism, philosophy, spirit, sympathetic, justice Humanism in The Grapes of Wrath 1. Brief Introduction of John Steinbeck John Steinbeck was the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s. He was born in Salinas, California, the locale of much of his finest fiction. His sympathy for the migrant workers and the down-trodden, so evident in his writhing, was the result of firsthand knowledge of their struggles. From is boyhood he was self-supporting, he worked as a laborer, a seaman on a cattle-boat, newspaper reporter, bricklayer, chemist’s assistant, surveyor, and migratory fruitpicker. His writing reflected his concern with the rituals of manual labor. His major works are: Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Long Valley (1938), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), East of Eden (1952). Among them, The Grapes of Wrath, generally regarded as his masterpiece and his most popular novel, showed the migration of the “Okies” from the “Dust Bowls” to California, a migration that ended in broken dreams and misery but at the same time affirmed the ability of the common people to endure and prevail. Steinbeck’s treatment of the social problems of his time, particularly the plight of the dispossessed farmer, earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and, in 1962, a Nobel Prize for literature. 2. Plot The novel begins just after Tom Joad is released on parole from prison. He travels all the way back home only to find his family making ready to move westward. Being unable to repay the money they have borrowed from banks, the Joads, including Grandma and Grandpa, Pa and Ma, John, Noah, Al, Rose of Sharon and Connie, Ruthie and Winfield, are evicted from their land in Oklahoma. Tempted by the fertility of California, they decide to seek their fortune in this “land of promise.” The family, joined by Casy, an ex-preacher, starts on the long and hard journey in an old wagon. During the journey Tom’s grandparents die；Noah, Tom’s dull-witted brother, leaves the family and Connie, Tom’s brother-in-low, deserts them. The rest, however, continue. When they arrive in California, they can hardly earn enough to keep themselves form going hungry. They spend some time in a government-run camp, and later work on a peach farm. When organizing a strike, Casy is killed. Tom revenges his friend and is seriously wounded. In order to protect Tome from the police, Ma, the soul of the family, makes a decision that they should leave the farm. While hiding Tom, they work at picking cotton. But Tom at last leaves the family to carry on Casy’s work in trying to improve the lot of the downtrodden everywhere. Because the rains had made destroyed the Joads’ car, they came to a barn, which they shared with a boy and his starving father. Then the poor kept each other alive in the depression years. 3. Character Analysis The Joad Family Grandpa: Grandpa Joad is like a character out of Chaucer’s “ The Miller’s Tale”—he is lecherous, loud, cantankerous, and the Joads seem to secretly relish his consistency in this. Grandpa is an old ripper, and his “joie de vivre” is earthily and convincingly pictured. Early, he repeatedly insists on his intention to gorge himself on grapes when he reaches California. Ironically, though, Grandpa panics at the time of departure, has to be drugged with cough medicine, and dies of a sudden stroke on the first night out, to be buried on his home ground of Oklahoma. Grandma: She is Grandpa’s spirited equal, whether eating, cussing or praying. She has a right with him for the duration of their long life together. Flighty as Grandma appears, her affection for her husband is obvious before Grandpa’s death. After Grandpa’s death, she retires more and more into a dream world, until she dies in Ma’s arms during the night as they drive across the desert. Uncle John: Pa Joad’s older brother, Uncle John can be regarded as the black sheep of the family, in that he is an eccentric loner, and a lonely guilt-ridden man. His wife dies for him. The pattern of Uncle John’ life alternates between periods of severe abstinence and brief binges, alcoholic and sexual. Also, he has always tried to assuage his guilt by being good to people—candy and gum for the kids, a sack of flour dropped off on somebody’s porch.. Pa: The elder Tom Joad is a man who, when we meet him, is finding it hard to accept the brute fact of his eviction from the land, where he has labored all his life. His wife and children continue to show respect for him as the head of the family, but in point of act the leadership slowly passes out of his hands into Ma’s and Tom’s. He is presented as a stunned, bewildered figure, sometimes angry, sometimes passive. Ma: Ma is a powerful though unassuming figure in the Joad clan. She is probably the ideal mother figure. She is patient in her unending labors, and in her determination to keep down fear and encourage joy in her family. She has a sense of humor and on occasion a kind of girlishness. Yet she can act and act vigorously, in opposition to the menfolk when it is for the sake of preserving the family unit. Throughout the novel she emerges as a symbol of love, as a person who instinctively practices brotherly love. She is a person of insight and intuition, and is able to communicate with the philosopher of the novel, Jim Casy, and his unconscious” disciple,” her son Tom. Noah: Nobody ever knows what Noah thinks or feels or even whether he is slightly feeble-minded, as Pa fears, because of an accident at his birth. He does his work reliably and never raises his voice in anger. On the day before the family sets out across the desert, as they encamp by a river, Noah announces to Tom his decision to remain by the river and fish. And indeed, the parting vision of such a placid existence of r Noah is a natural one. Tom: Tom is a central character, and perhaps the one who develops most－and survives－in the novel. He is individualistic and quick to anger if he feels he is being pushed around; however, in the same time, he is also kind, sometimes witty, and potentially strong in the moral and intuition that his mother is. In fact, Jim Casy becomes his teacher, converting him by words and by his won example to the idea that a man cannot just look after himself but should be in the spirit of compassion and be obligated to help others. Although still an outlaw of society at the end of the book, Tom’s status is actually changed: he is fighting for social amelioration, a better way of life for his people and for all struggling people. Tom, in other words, experiences re-education and re-birth in the novel. Rosesharn (Rose of Sharon): Rose is beauty, kind-hearted, but also vulnerable, sometimes she is self-deceiving. When her husband leaves her when she is pregnant, she still believes that he will come back. Most of Rosasharn’s existence in the story is centered upon her unborn child, who at length, because of inadequate diet, unsanitary and harassing living conditions, and perhaps because of Connie’s eventual desertion, is born dead. However, good and honest, she saves the life of a famished stranger with the milk from her breasts. Al: Sixteen-year-old Al is expert at two things: tomcatting and mechanics. He worries about his responsibility for the old Hudson, but his judgments prove sound and dependable for the family. Typically, Al is an admirer of his older brother Tom and wishes to imitate him. At last he has become engaged to Aggie Wainwright, whose family has shared a boxcar with the Joads. Ruthie: She is 12, and seen in the novel at that point of suspension between girlhood and womanhood, ranging from lady like composure which excludes her young brother Winfield to giggling, frantic games and exploits with him. Winfield: He is 10, and realistically depicted in the gaucheries, the awkwardness, and the mischievousness of a 10 year old. Other Characters Jim Casy: The ex-preacher is revealed form the first as an introspective man who retains the respect of the community in spite of－later, because of－the fact that he now refuses to preach. He has examined himself, he says, and has found that although he still strongly feels a call to lead and help the people, he can no longer in good conscience preach the religious gospel they are accustomed to. It emerges that he doesn’t believe the old-time “hell fire” and “promise of heaven” religion is realistic for their present needs. Jim Casy, who is the Christ-figure prophet until his martyr’s death, speaks thoughts which reflect various philosophies: Transcendentalism, humanism, pragmatism, socialism. He does in fact lead and comfort the people; and he lays down his life for Tom Joad, who has in effect become his disciple and eventually takes over his work for social betterment. Muley Graves: He is a neighbor of the Joads in Oklahoma, and he represents one of the pathetic directions in which the ruined lives of the Okies ran. Although his family has migrated to California, “something” kept him form accompanying them. The way he now roams the countryside, living almost like an animal off the land “like a graveyard ghost”, as he confesses—he seems a little touched. He is a sad figure to all, as we get our final glimpse of him standing forlornly in the dooryard of the Joad homestead. Floyd Knowles: He is a brave, stronghearted young man who can be singled out from among the various men encountered by the Joads as commentator on the conditions of the migrants. He bitterly describes the exploitation of the workers by the owners, and the injustice and brutality of officials. Floyd speaks up and demands his legal rights, and he is immediately arrested on the false charges of “red agitator”. Mr. Thomas: Thomas is an interesting representative—a good man—of the small farmer or small businessman contingent in the hierarchy of laborers, owners, bankers, officials, etc. He is sympathetic to the situation of the migrants—for example, he himself is ashamed and angered that he must reduce their pay from thirty cents to twenty-five cents, and he does them the important favor of revealing the plan to cause a riot at the Saturday dance. He is one of the little men who will probably be squeezed out eventually by larger business interests; as it is, he is obliged to lower the wages because he is under the power of the Farmers’ Association, which in turn is controlled d by The Bank of the West. The power interests will not hesitate to wipe him out if he resists. 4. Comment: The entire major characters in the novel, with Jim Casy and later, Tom Joad leading, seem to move form a religiously based to a humanly based philosophy of life in the novel. It is clear, of course, as soon as Jim Casy begins to explain to everyone why the cannot be a “preacher” any longer that he more and more finds the religious precepts of his and his people’s immediate past untenable in their present realities: some of Jim’s most memorable speeches early in the book are his declarations that he wants to help and comfort the people still, he feels things are changing and they are going someplace, but he can no longer look upon sin in the conventional Bible-belt evangelical way nor can he offer facile prayers or parade future heavenly glory to people whose lives are materially an psychically wretched in the present. In another important speech he claims the “spirit”—a feeling of which has always figured so largely in local religion—a feeling of which has always figured so largely in local religion—seems now to him to be more of a human spirit that the spirit of a remote God; at any rate it is this human spirit which he now feels sure of , just as he feels certain that the souls of all the people go to make up one great soul: the Oversoul spoken of before. Tom Joad moves toward a philosophy of humanism in the novel, too. At the beginning, although he is a sensitive, kind and communicative person, he is still, rather naturally, “out for himself”—individualistic, we might say, focusing on his won personal and material well-being and of course, the welfare of the Joad family. His actions, that is, stem more form particular causes and crises rather than from any sense of general principle. As he says, “I put one foot down in front of the other,” and” I climb fences when I got to climb fences.” He is, however, an admirer and disciple of Jim Casy’s almost form the beginning, too, since Jim is the first person form his past whom Tom encounters on this way home form prison. Tom always listens with curiosity and interest to Jim Casy, and later he realizes, as he tells his mother, that he has absorbed more of Casy’s philosophizing that he knew. He takes over Jim Casy’s philosophy and his tasks, too, at that point after Casy’s martyrdom when he quotes the preacher and takes up his credo that “Two are better than one.” He speaks in terms of “our people,” of doing something so that they may live decently and happily again. Tom Joad has thus enlarged his compassion to all human beings, beyond the family unit. The women like Ma and Sairy Wilson can of course be included among the “humanists” in the novel too, for (first of all as mothers) all their actions are outgoing and predominantly selfless. Ma Joad cars about human beings and understand s them strikingly will. There are countless examples of her insight and understanding: after Grandpa’s death, later in the evening, she instructs Rosasharn to go and lie by Grandma because “she’ll be feeling lonesome now”; she is constantly attuned to the complex emotions which come with Rosasharn’s pregnancy, compounded by the desertion of her husband Connie—Ma prevents Tom from needling her, yet encourages her to see Tom’s jokes about her swelling body as affectionate, which they are; she comprehends that the girl in her loneliness wants to enjoy the Saturday dance at Weedpatch but desperately fears the temptation of her flesh, so that she and Ma go and sit together, Rosasharn secure in Ma’s promise to keep her out of trouble; and at the very lowest ebb of her daughter’s morale, shortly before her baby is due, Ma makes exactly the right move by giving Rosasharn the gift of gold earrings, one of the few family possessions salvaged, and further distracts her form her troubles by piercing her ears on the spot. Ma silently and without judgment whatsoever acknowledges Uncle John’s absolute need to get drunk on the night Jim Casy has stepped forward to go to prison in place of Tome; on another occasion, she breaks down with reasonable and sympathetic words the pathetic defenses of the mother whose hungry children have licked the Joad stew pot and gone home to brag and ask questions about it. One of the prime instances of Ma’s insight into and compassion for humanity is her exchange with the scared little storekeeper at her Hooper ranch, where her hard-earned dollar is so swiftly absorbed by the exorbitant pries set by the Hooper controls. She has complained with perfect justice about the unfair price on each item of their purchases. When finished shopping and on their way out, she realizes that she still has no sugar, which she has promised the family. She asks the man to trust her for the dime’s worth of sugar, which her family is earning at the moment out in the orchards. He cannot: company rule. Not even for a dime, Ma asks? “He looked pleadingly at her. And then his face lost its fear. He took ten cents form his pocket and rang it up in the cash register. There, he said with relied. While he cannot go against the owners, out of fear, he can loan money form his won pocket…. As Ma gratefully acknowledges his huge gesture, in relative terms, she makes her point about “humanism” among the poor people in general: “I’m learning one thing good. Leaning it all a time, everyday. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help—the only ones.” It might be added that the humanistic philosophy we find in The grapes of Wrath has been attributed to the influence of transcendental philosophy, which stresses man’s wroth and dignity and potential depth of character, and to Walt Whitman’s exuberant belief in the masses and love of one’s fellow man. 5. Conclusion: The Grapes of Wrath is highly valued for its social and political message. Steinbeck in his panoramic descriptions exposes the incredible ruthlessness of bankers and fruit growers and the great sufferings of the agricultural migrants in the 1930s in America. Under the circumstances, humanism is a big question merit pondering. Or more exactly, be humane is the essential thing.