Study guides - Page 6 | Just Great DataBase
Joseph Conrad is a perfectly suitable candidate to write about heroism and government relations with its subjects. Born in Ukraine to a polish nobleman, he experienced all kinds of state influence on his destiny: his father was sent to Siberia by the Russian government for treason, under the influence of French and English novel he fell in love with the sailor profession and had to make it...
“Hedda Gabler” is an outstanding play by the greatest Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. This play can be called one of Ibsen’s most extreme and mysterious dramas. The mystery lies in the image of Hedda - a gorgeous, beautiful woman who has destructive energy influencing her surroundings. The actions took place in 1890. Hedda Gabler is an intelligent young woman, who is able...
“Henry V” is a play by a great English author devoted to the life and personality of a great King Henry the Fifth. It is a historical text of an author who has been close to royal families and made his career thanks to that fact. Normally historical books don’t begin with the characters. But this is a unique play both in terms of language and style. The book is devoted to life...
Herzog by Saul Bellow is a novel that features an original narrative style - mostly it consists of the letters of the protagonist, a Jewish man in his forties named Herzog, who survives through the midlife crisis. His two marriages were unlucky ones, with the second one ending in a very humiliating and devastating fashion with his wife openly cheating on him and even making him arrange her move...
This novel by John Hersey tells us the six stories of the rare survivors of Hiroshima bombardment. They are different people, not connected to each other by anything except the mere fact that they were the luckiest people who managed to survive the atomic explosion. They are two doctors, two priestesses and two women - a factory worker and a widowed seamstress. Despite each of them tells the...
Victor Hugo created many literary works, but “Hunchback Of Notre Dame” is surely considered to be his best one. If you or anyone shall want to read just one book in your life – then this is it! You won’t be tempted to take another book in our hands for a long time after finishing this novel. The novel saw the world in 1831. It is hard to call it a Gothic novel or a...
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” is a chronicle of the first 16 years of Maya Angelou's life. She is one of the most heard and visible figures of the African American women movement both in terms of her literary and social activity. "The Caged Bird" starts with Maya, whose full name is Marguerite, she is traveling together with siblings to stay with their grandparents...
“In Cold Blood” is more than just a thriller or a detective story. Truman Capote wrote a truly diverse and multidimensional text that tells a story of a real quadruple murder in the USA. The murder happened in Kansas in 1959 and immediately after it, the author went down to interview the locals. The book was published six years after in 1966. The murderers were caught and executed...
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is a novel written in 1961 by Harriet Ann Jacobs. It is an autobiography and presents female outlook into slavery. Being a very sentimental text, it depicts the reality of author living through slavery and buying the freedom for herself and her children. The author started writing the book right after moving to New York. She wanted the women of...
The whole play is dedicated to the depiction of a single trial that took place in real history: the Scopes (Monkey) Trial that happened in 1925. John T. Scopes, a teacher was accused of teaching his students the theory of evolution created by Charles Darwin. This case was depicted in history inaccurately for a long time, used to propagate either one or the other point of view, but the final...
“Invisible Man” is a novel that requires an adult reader. Ralph Ellison wrote it in 1952 and put all social and intellectual issues surrounding racial issues into the text. He also employed all his creative skills making the novel a fusion of jazz sounds, surreal events, different writing styles and extraordinary characters. The evil doesn’t have a face. Who is this man...
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is a science fiction story that raises lots of philosophical questions. What can be considered an intelligent being? Is humanity something that exists exclusively for humans? What can uncontrolled technical progress lead to? When the world discovered Koko the Gorilla, a gorilla able to communicate with people and express her emotions, feelings and even attitude to the...
This book is considered one of the best children’s books ever written and there is a reason for it. It is historical fiction, based on life of a real Lone Woman whom the author named Karana in the book. The vivid depiction of the wild nature of the Island of the Blue Dolphins Karana lives on, invites the readers to explore the story of this island and Karana’s lost tribe. Once upon a...
Ivanhoe is a romantic novel written by Walter Scott and telling us about the story of the descendant of one of the last Anglo-Saxon noble families under the Norman reign. The interest in medieval culture and ballads inspired Scott to vividly depicts tournaments, battles of honor, fair ladies who need to be rescued and other traditional topics of the knightly literature. Though, more pragmatic...
“Jane Eyre” is a British novel written by Charlotte Bronte, also known under the pen name Currer Bell. It was published in 1847 and has provoked a storm of feelings and thoughts among its readers ever since. The high intensity of the Christian religion in the morals of the text goes in line with the concepts of class subordination, feminism, and sexuality. The story follows the young...
Joseph Andrews is called an epic poem and is often compared to Don Quixote by Cervantes. But, unlike Cervantes’ work, the humor in this poem is much more kind and light, though still portraying the people from their best and worst sides simultaneously. This poem was a satire, a sincere comedy and a protest against the moral and technical limitations of literature of Fielding’s time...
“Jude the Obscure” was published as a complete book 1895, being broken down into magazine series before that. It has brought its author, Thomas Hardy, both fame and critical persecution. Some of the copies of the book were even withdrawn from libraries. The novel is about Jude Fawley, who is a young bricklayer in a provincial town. He has a big and sincere wish – to...
The tragedy by William Shakespeare isn’t his most famous work, but definitely worth discovering. Only after having read “Julius Caesar” can the reader truly ponder upon author’s words of wisdom. This work had given source to many quotes and notions that live till our days. The plot begins with a pompous celebration of another one of Caesar’s victory. The great...
The novel “Kindred” was written by Octavia Butler in 1979. It is one of the few slave narratives written in a science fiction style. Using such style the author tried to reexamine the consequences and legacy of slavery through a modern perspective. The protagonist of the book, Dana, turns 26 years old in the summer of 1976. She is a young African American, who is married to a white...