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Because of Winn-Dixie

A 10-year-old girl, abandoned by her mother when she was three, moves to a small town in Florida with her father, a preacher. While there, she adopts a stray dog whom she names after the local supermarket where he was found. With her goofy pooch by her side, she meets an eclectic group of townspeople and rekindles an almost lost relationship with her father.

Characters/People

 India Opal Buloni: The main character who finds the dog - Winn-Dixie.  Winn-Dixie: Opal's friendly dog  Otis: Opal's friend who loves music, and works at the pet store. Used to be a criminal  Gloria Dump: Opal's new friend that she met and hosted a party with at her house  Miss Franny Block: The old lady who works at the library  The preacher: Opal's father who misses his ex-wife very much  Amanda Wilkinson: a girl that goes to Opal's church.  Sweetie Pie Thomas: a five year old girl that goes to Opal's church; loves Winn-Dixie  Carson Wilkinson: Amanda's brother.  Dunlap Dewberry: a boy at Opal's church that Opal thinks is a bald-head baby; brothers with Stevie  Stevie Dewberry: A boy at Opal's church that Opal thinks is a bald-head baby; brothers with Dunlap

QUOTES:

 “you don’t have any family and neither do I. I’ve got the preacher, of course. But I don’t have a mama. I mean I have one, but I don’t know where she is. She left when I was three years old. I can’t hardly remember her. And I bet you don’t remember your mama much either. So we’re almost like orphans.”  I loved the preacher so much. I loved him because he loved Winn-Dixie. I loved him because he was going to forgive Winn-Dixie for being afraid. But most of all, I loved him for putting his arm around Winn-Dixie like that, like he was already trying to keep him safe http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-because-of-winn-dixie/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR When Kate DiCamillo was five years old, she and her mother and brother moved from Philadelphia to a small town in Florida in hopes that the warm southern climate would alleviate young Kate’s chronic pneumonia. She spent her sickly childhood reading books—“I learned to rely on stories as a way of understanding the world”—and dressing her standard poodle Nanette in a tutu and, later, disco clothes. When she was in her twenties, Kate DiCamillo moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived in an apartment that did not allow dogs. “I wrote Winn- Dixie because I was homesick for Florida . . . and because I wanted a dog and couldn’t have one . . . . It allowed me to go home and to spend time with a dog of the highest order.” The author continues to live in Minneapolis, where she writes two pages a day, five days a week. Her biggest challenge as a writer is to “get out of the way” so that her characters can tell her their stories. About India Opal Buloni, the protagonist in Winn-Dixie, she says, “India Opal Buloni seems so real to me, I don’t think I could have made her up. Rather, I feel like I discovered her.” http://www.candlewick.com/book_files/0763607762.btg.1.pdf Bridge to Terabithia

Summary of the Plot: Jess Aarons is an eleven-year-old boy living in a rural area of the South who loves to run. He dreams of being the fastest boy in the fifth grade when school starts up in the fall, feeling that this will for once give him a chance to stand in the spotlight among his five sisters, and might win him the attention of his preoccupied father. Jess is quite insecure in his identity. He loves to paint and draw, but he knows very well that this labels him a "sissy" in the eyes of most of the world, particularly his father. In addition, his family is stretched so tight by poverty that he has little chance to really explore his own identity during this crucial period of adolescence. He has therefore built up the importance of winning in his mind, feeling that here, at least, is something that he is good at which won't win him an undesired label of "sissy" or "girl" in the eyes of his father or schoolmates, and which will allow him to shine in his own right. He practices each morning, always dreaming of his upcoming victory. However, when the races come around at recess, a new girl, Leslie Burke, who just moved next door to Jess, boldly crosses to the boys' side of the playground and beats everyone. A rather unpromising beginning, but Jess and Leslie become fast friends. They build a secret fantasyland across the creek in the woods, called Terabithia, where they play all the time. There they forget the rest of the world, such as the kids at school or Jess's less-than-satisfactory family. The time they spend in Terabithia, in fact, seems to strengthen them for these trials of everyday life: it is there that they map out a plan of revenge on the school bully when she steals May Belle's Twinkies, and it is there that they discuss Jess's feelings of insecurity when Leslie begins to draw closer to her father. Leslie also introduces Jess to the world of imagination and creativity, telling him the stories of such classics of literature as Moby Dick and Hamlet . All this also strengthens Jess's artistic talent and ability, as Leslie supports his ambition and, through the stories she tells, provides him with great subject matter. But much of the time they play wonderful games of their own invention—defeating intruders on Terabithian territory, praying to the Spirits of the Grove to end a long spell of rain, and numerous other fantasies. However, Jess and Leslie's friendship, though centered in Terabithia, is not limited to Terabithia. They see each other at school, where they take a good deal of ribbing for their cross-gender friendship, but by now that sort of teasing has lost the power to hurt Jess, and Leslie has never been particularly bothered by what others think. At home, they celebrate holidays together, such as Christmas, when Jess gives Leslie a puppy and she gives him an expensive art set to develop his artistic talent, and Easter, when Leslie goes to church for the first time with Jess. Leslie is impressed by the beauty of the story of Christ. Jess and his little sister May Belle, cowed by negative and unforgiving religious training, are convinced that nonbelievers such as Leslie are doomed to hell, and find the whole experience disturbing. Nevertheless, Jess and Leslie remain the best of friends, and Jess finds a purpose in his life through Leslie's company that he's never had before.

Characters Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. - The main character and protagonist of the novel. Jess is a fifth- grader living in a rural Southern area. He is lonely and lost in the middle of a family of four girls when Leslie Burke moves in next door. Leslie and Jess become best friends, and the novel centers on their friendship. Jess is a budding artist whose talent receives little praise from anyone except Leslie and Miss Edmunds. Yet he is quite talented, as well as intelligent, caring, and down- to-earth. A thoroughly likable character, we are quickly drawn into his world and his personal tribulations. 0763

Leslie Burke- Leslie moves to Lark Creek at the beginning of her and Jess's fifth-grade year, and she stands out in shining contrast to the rest of the students. Her parents are highly educated, intellectual, affluent, and liberal, and they have exposed her to the wider world in a way that none of the students at Lark Creek have ever imagined. Leslie is full to the brim with imagination, creativity, mischief, and fun. A voracious reader with a keen sense of intellectual curiosity, she is the one who comes up with the idea of Terabithia. She immediately senses the potential in Jess and the two become fast friends, and it is she who draws Jess out of the socially constructed shell that has constrained him for his whole life. Mrs. Aarons - Jess's mother. Mrs. Aarons is tired and careworn with the stresses of trying to support a family of seven on a poor family's income. She always seems to be hounding Jess to do chores or milk the cow, but her shortness of temper is merely a result of overwork. After Leslie's death, she shows herself to be a caring mother torn apart by her son's pain. Nevertheless, under normal circumstances she does not help to make Jess's home life inviting or comfortable. Mr. Aarons - Jess's father. Mr. Aarons is likewise harried by the concerns of being the sole breadwinner for a large family. He rarely has time for Jess, which is hard on the boy. He wants to do the right thing by his son, but he isn't quite sure how; the irony is that all he would really need to do would be to sit down with Jess, ruffle his hair, and talk with him about his day, but he doesn't seem to understand this. He expects Jess to be a "man," a source of considerable heartache and soul-searching on the part of Jess, whose passions lie elsewhere than playing football and driving big trucks. However, he is concerned with his son's welfare and wants nothing but the best for him, as is evidenced in his treatment of Jess after Leslie's death. Ellie - Jess's oldest sister. Her age is never given directly, but we can guess that she's about fifteen or sixteen. Ellie is thoroughly spoiled, much like Brenda, the difference between them is that Ellie has mastered the art of sycophancy, and consequently leaves a much better taste in most people's mouths. Vain, conceited, and shallow, Ellie continually annoys Jess. Brenda - Jess's second-oldest sister. We can surmise that she is around fourteen. Brenda is even more annoying than Ellie. She shares Ellie's vanity and shallowness, but she whines continually and has no sense of when to stop before pushing people too far. She harries Jess continually, and is primly content with her own little world of makeup, scanty clothing, and romantic interests. Even after Leslie's death, Brenda will not stop harassing Jess. She is wholly immature and self- absorbed May Belle Aarons - Jess's little sister. May Belle is closer to him than any other member of their family. She is six and a bit lost, and she is without close friends or siblings close enough in age to play with. She often tries to push herself in with Jess and Leslie, which they do not like, but all the same Jess feels bad for her. At the end of the novel, it is she who allows Terabithia to live on, as she becomes its new queen. Joyce Ann - Jess's youngest sister, at four years old. Joyce Ann is not developed very much as a character. She is often portrayed as whiny, but she is only four. Jess does not share the same bond with her that he does with May Belle, but he seems to feel a certain warmth toward her, as is evidenced by the end of the book, when he suggests that in time, Joyce Ann may join May Belle in Terabithia as a princess. Miss Edmunds - The music teacher at the school. Jess is deeply in puppy love with her. She seems a creature from another world to him, a beautiful woman with a beautiful look and a smile for all the students, but especially Jess. She encourages his artistic talent, one of the two people in the world, including Leslie, who does, and seems to care about him in a special way. She is somewhat of a hippie, which only deepens her allure for Jess, because it confirms her individuality and separation from the narrow world of Lark Creek. Kind and caring, it is no mystery why Jess adores her, as she seems to fill a void of affection and compassion that he does not get from his family. Mr. Burke - Leslie's father. He is a political writer who is extremely gifted intellectually but rather scatterbrained. Leslie's growing friendship with Bill disturbs Jess until Leslie invites him to spend time with them as well. Mrs. Burke - Leslie's mother. Judy writes novels and seems to spend most of her time closed in her room with her typewriter going. Not that she neglects Leslie, but she just seems busier than Mr. Burke. All in all, Leslie's parents lavish on her the love and attention that is not demonstrated clearly in Jess's house. Janice Avery - A seventh-grader who is the school bully. Janice terrorizes May Belle, as well as the rest of the younger kids, until Jess and Leslie find a way of getting back at her. However, Janice is not an ultimate demon; she has her own problems that lend her an aspect of sympathy. Her father abuses her, and when her friends blab her secrets to the entire school, her tough-girl persona snaps. It is Leslie who comforts her, at Jess's urging, forming an unlikely friendship between them.

QUOTES: "Jess drew the way some people drank whiskey. The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw. Animals, mostly. Not regular animals like Miss Bessie and the chickens, but crazy animals with problems —for some reason he liked to put his beasts into impossible fixes… He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn't dare. When he was in first grade, he told his father than he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He'd thought he would be pleased. He wasn't. 'What are they teaching in that damn school?' he had asked. 'Bunch of old ladies turning my son into some kind of a—' He had stopped on the word, but Jess had gotten the message. It was one you didn't forget, even after four years." "It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on. For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world—huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile? (Handle with care—everything—even the predators.) "Now it was time for him to move out. She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them. It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength. "As for the terrors ahead—for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him—well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white. Right, Leslie? "Right."

THEMES:

Friendship

Jess and Leslie's friendship is the central theme of Bridge to Terabithia. Their friendship is delightful on a simple level, their childish exploits fraught with amusement and joy. However, we cannot simply call Bridge to Terabithia a monument to the carefree pleasures of childhood, because that would miss one of the main points of the story. The reason that Jess and Leslie's friendship is so magical is because it allows them to rejoice in childhood and to escape the rest of the pressures that bear down on them so heavily in the rest of their lives. Jess, in particular, leads a life full of everyday hardship and dissatisfaction. We sense that before Leslie came along, he was in danger of sinking under the weight of these combined pressures and reluctantly accepting conformity.

Childhood

Childhood is a corollary to the theme of friendship in the book. As mentioned before, some people might have a tendency to breezily summarize childhood as a time of carefree bliss, when nothing could go wrong. This might be reinforced by the idealized times that Leslie and Jess spend in Terabithia, which seem to be the epitome of untroubled childhood joy. The main attraction of Terabithia is that it allows the children to escape the "real world," which is apparently nearly as full of pain and sorrow for children as for adults.

Conformity and individuality Jess's main struggle in the book is to discover his true identity when faced with the demands of his family and society in general. The push is for him to conform—to discard his artistic talent and concentrate instead on those pursuits that are either more "manly" or which will be more practically useful to the family.

Gender Roles

Gender role is a motif that plays off the idea of conformity. Jess is expected to fit into a certain mold, but that mold is a distinctly masculine one. Jess's father is scornful of his artistic ability, calling it a girl's pastime. Jess is expected to be responsible, stoic, and strong, and to be ready to shoulder the burden of responsibility for the family that his father has carried all these years.

Terabithia

Terabithia is a symbol of idealized childhood, of a perfect world in which children can rule supreme without the heavy responsibilities of adulthood. No bad thing can touch the rulers of Terabithia. The place provides a much-needed refuge for Leslie and Jess. However, Terabithia is not an absolute sanctuary, as is proven upon Leslie's death. She drowns in the creek, the border between the perfect world of Terabithia and the harder world of reality.

The rope over the creek and the bridge to Terabithia

When they originated the idea of Terabithia, Leslie decreed that the rope swinging over the creek would be a magic rope, the only entrance to the magical land. When the rope snaps, it seems to be a symbol stating that the magic is at an end. The breaking of the rope seems to cement the fate of Terabithia, which really died with the death of its queen.

SYMBOLS · The creek; the rope over the creek; Terabithia; the bridge to Terabithia

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Katherine Paterson (born October 31, 1932) is an American author of children's novels. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia and has received several of the major international awards for children's literature. She was born Katherine Womeldorf in Qingjiang, China, to Christian missionaries George and Mary Womeldorf. Her father was a principal at Sutton 690, a school for girls, and traveled throughout China as part of his missionary duties. The Womeldorf family lived in a Chinese neighborhood and immersed themselves in Chinese culture. When Katherine was five years old, the family was forced to leave China during the Japanese invasion of 1937. The family moved to Richmond, Virginia for a short while before returning to China to live in Shanghai. In 1940, the family was forced to flee again, this time to North Carolina.

The Womeldorf family moved 13 times between 1937 and 1950 because of George Womeldorf's work and also because of the war in China. Katherine was always the newcomer and never fit in very well, perhaps in part due to her British accent and secondhand clothing. She was lonely during this time and turned to writing to deal with her loneliness. While in school, she wrote many plays in which her peers acted. Paterson began her professional career in the Presbyterian Church by teaching Sunday school curriculum for fifth and sixth grade parochial students. In 1966, she wrote the novel Who Am I?. While continuing to write, she was unable to get any of her novels published. After being persuaded, Paterson took an adult education course in creative writing during which her first novel was published. Her first children's novel, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum, was published in 1976. A Japanese fairy tale, it is based on Paterson's studies in Japan. Bridge to Terabithia, her most widely recognized book, was published in 1977. Terabithia was highly controversial due to some of the difficult themes. Bridge to Terabithia is among the most popular books she has written.Some of her other books also feature difficult themes such as the death of a loved one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Paterson http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/facts.html http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/terabithia/summary.html

TUCK EVERLASTING: http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Tuck_Everlasting/Tuck_Everlasting01.html

SHORT PLOT / CHAPTER SUMMARY (Synopsis) This story is a fantasy about a family named Tuck who accidentally stumble upon a spring in a wood, which has the ability to give eternal life. They don’t realize at first what they have drunk until they realize that their bodies are not aging and they cannot be hurt or harmed in any way. They travel quietly around the countryside; never staying in one place too long so that people will not realize their secret. Into this family comes Winnie Foster, a little girl in search of freedom. She learns their secret and falls in love with them so deeply that she will do anything to protect them. The family and Winnie then must face a villain who would steal their secret for himself.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

Winnie Foster Winnie is a ten-year-old girl who as an only child is overly protected and stifled with rules. She desperately wants to run away from this and her decision to leave her yard and go into the Wood sets into motion the plot of the story.

Mae Tuck The mother of the Tuck family, Mae is very kind and compassionate. She is also quite untidy in her housekeeping, but a loving wife and mother nonetheless.

Angus Tuck He is the father of the Tuck family and though outwardly gruff, he makes Winnie somehow love him the most of the entire family. He is very wise about drinking from the spring or telling anyone their secret.

Miles Tuck He is the oldest Tuck child and appears to be about twenty-one or twenty-two years old. When he and Jesse leave home to seek a life away from their parents, he seems more responsible, holding such jobs as carpentry and blacksmithing.

Jesse Tuck He is the youngest son of the Tuck family and stopped aging at 17. He is a free spirit who does what strikes him at the moment. He is quite handsome and he and Winnie fall in love.

The Man in the Yellow Suit He is the villain of the story, a strange man who wears unusual clothing and is looking to find the spring, which will give him eternal life and make him a lot of money.

The Toad This creature is Winnie’s first real friend, but it takes her awhile to realize it. It seems to follow her everywhere she goes, and she develops a keen sense of caring for it. It is also a symbol of metamorphosis and change. THEMES

The great circle of life and how we may be bound by its dictums, but it is for our own good

The most important theme of the novel involves the great circle of life and how we may be bound by its dictums, but it is for our own good. The author seems to be speaking about how death is just as much an integral part of life as living is. We are meant to be born, live, hopefully, a good life, and then die. To disrupt that cycle would have devastating consequences to our world. This is the ultimate lesson that Winnie learns, as shown by her decision to not drink from the spring.

Flowers for Algernon:

Plot summary: C HARLIE GORDON, a mentally retarded thirty-two-year-old man, is chosen by a team of scientists to undergo an experimental surgery designed to boost his intelligence. Alice Kinnian, Charlie’s teacher at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults, has recommended Charlie for the experiment because of his exceptional eagerness to learn. The directors of the experiment, Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur, ask Charlie to keep a journal. The entire narrative of Flowers for Algernon is composed of the “progress reports” that Charlie writes.

Charlie undergoes the operation. He is initially disappointed that there is no immediate change in his intellect, but with work and help from Alice, he gradually improves his spelling and grammar. Charlie begins to read adult books, slowly at first, then voraciously, filling his brain with knowledge from many academic fields. Algernon’s intelligence begins to slip, and his behavior becomes erratic. Charlie worries that whatever happens to Algernon will soon happen to him as well. Algernon eventually dies. Fearing a regression to his previous level of intelligence, Charlie visits his mother and sister in order to try to come to terms with his past. Charlie succeeds in finding the error in Nemur’s hypothesis, scientifically proving that a flaw in the operation will cause his intelligence to vanish as quickly as it has come. Charlie calls this phenomenon the “Algernon-Gordon Effect.”

Character List Charlie Gordon - The protagonist and author of the progress reports that form the text of Flowers for Algernon. Charlie is a thirty-two-year-old mentally retarded man who lives in New York City. At the start of the novel, he works at Donner’s Bakery as a janitor and delivery boy. Charlie’s friendliness and eagerness to please, along with his childhood feelings of inadequacy, make him the hardest-working student in Alice Kinnian’s literacy class for retarded adults. When Charlie undergoes an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence, his IQ skyrockets to the level of a genius. His obsession with untangling his own emotional life and his longing to reach an emotional maturity and inner peace to match his intellectual authority inform many of the novel’s primary concerns. Alice Kinnian - Charlie’s teacher at the Beekman College Center for Retarded Adults. Alice originally recommends Charlie for the experimental operation because she is impressed by his motivation. Although she is not one of the scientists who perform the experiment on Charlie, she acts as an unofficial member of the team because of her concern for him. She is interested in intellectual pursuits but is ultimately more motivated by emotion. Alice is the one woman with whom Charlie briefly finds loving fulfillment. Professor Harold Nemur - The scientist in charge of the experiment that heightens Charlie’s intelligence. An arrogant and career-obsessed man, Nemur treats Charlie as a laboratory animal rather than a human being. Nemur has a tendency to imply that he created Charlie, as if his mentally challenged patient is not a human. Nemur is tormented somewhat by his wife, who seems even more fixated on his career than he is. Dr. Strauss - The neurologist and psychiatrist who performs the experimental operation that raises Charlie’s intelligence, and Nemur’s partner in the experiment. Dr. Strauss conducts therapy sessions with Charlie after the operation. Unlike Nemur, Dr. Strauss maintains interest in and concern for Charlie’s emotional development. Burt Selden - A friendly graduate student who is working on his thesis and who assists Strauss and Nemur in conducting the experiment. Burt oversees the testing of both Charlie and Algernon. He introduces Charlie to some of the students and faculty at Beekman College. Algernon - The white mouse that is the first successful test subject for the experimental operation Charlie later undergoes. The operation makes Algernon three times as intelligent as a normal mouse and enables him to solve complex puzzles. Fay Lillman - Charlie’s neighbor in the apartment building that he moves into after running away from the scientific convention. Fay is an attractive, free-spirited, and sexually liberal artist whose favorite pastimes are drinking and dancing. She embarks on a brief affair with Charlie, knowing nothing about his background. Rose Gordon - Charlie’s mother, a domineering woman terribly ashamed of Charlie’s retardation. In the early part of his childhood, Rose refused to accept that Charlie was abnormal, despite her husband’s appeals for her to be rational. Rose finally had another child, Norma, on whom she focused all of her energy. Rose routinely punished Charlie for any sign of sexual interest, as she could not accept the notion of her retarded son having any form of sexuality. Matt Gordon - Charlie’s father, a barbershop-supply salesman who always wanted to open his own barbershop, and eventually does. Although Matt tried to protect the young Charlie from Rose’s hostility, he gave in too easily to her bullying. Norma Gordon - Charlie’s younger sister, who grows up to act as caretaker for their mentally unstable mother. During their childhood, Norma resented Charlie for getting what she perceived as special treatment and was cruel to him. When she reencounters Charlie as an adult, however, she is glad to see him and regrets her youthful spite. Uncle Herman - Charlie’s uncle, who took care of Charlie after Rose expelled him from her home. Herman was generous to Charlie, protected him from neighborhood bullies, and set him up with his longtime job at Donner’s Bakery. At the beginning of the novel, Herman has been dead for years. Mr. Donner - The owner of the bakery where Charlie works. A friend of Uncle Herman, Mr. Donner agreed to hire Charlie so he would not have to go to the Warren State Home upon Herman’s death. Donner gave Herman his word that he would look out for Charlie’s interests. Donner stands by his pledge faithfully and treats Charlie like family. Frank Reilly and Joe Carp - Two employees at Donner’s Bakery who often pick on Charlie. Frank and Joe play tricks on Charlie and make him the butt of jokes that he does not understand. However, Frank and Joe think of themselves as Charlie’s friends and defend him when others pick on him. Gimpy - A baker at Donner’s Bakery who secretly steals from his boss. Gimpy got his nickname because of his limp. His relationship with Charlie is much like Frank and Joe’s relationship with Charlie. Fanny Birden - The only bakery employee who is consistently nice to Charlie. Fanny does not like to see the others pick on Charlie because of his disability. When Charlie becomes a genius, Fanny is glad for him but is highly suspicious and wonders if he has made a deal with the devil.

Dr. Guarino - A quack doctor to whom Charlie was taken as a child. Dr. Guarino promised Rose that he could scientifically increase Charlie’s intelligence, but his methods are a complete sham. Guarino, however, was kind to Charlie. Hilda - The nurse on duty while Charlie is first recovering from his operation. Hilda believes that Charlie may be defying God’s will by trying to gain intelligence unnaturally. Minnie - An ordinary female mouse Fay purchases so that Algernon can have a companion. Meyer Klaus - A brutish new employee at Donner’s Bakery who is working there when Charlie briefly reassumes his job after losing his temporary intelligence. Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Mistreatment of the Mentally Disabled

The fictional idea of artificially augmenting or diminishing intelligence enables Keyes to offer a telling portrayal of society’s mistreatment of the mentally disabled. As Charlie grows more intelligent after his operation, effectively transforming from a mentally retarded man to a genius, he realizes that people have always based their attitudes toward him on feelings of superiority. For the most part, other people have treated Charlie not only as an intellectual inferior but also as less of a human being than they are. While some, like his coworkers at the bakery, have treated him with outright cruelty, others have tried to be kind but ultimately have been condescending in their charity. After his operation, Charlie himself drifts into a condescending and disrespectful attitude toward the disabled to a certain extent. Charlie consciously wants to treat his new intellectual inferiors as he wishes others had treated him. When he sees patrons at a diner laughing at a mentally retarded busboy, he demands that the patrons recognize the boy’s humanity. However, when Charlie visits the Warren State Home, he is horrified by the dim faces of the disabled people he meets, and he is unable to muster any warmth toward them. Charlie fears the patients at Warren State because he does not want to accept that he was once like them and may soon be like them again. We may even interpret Charlie’s reaction as his own embodiment of the same fear of abnormality that has driven his mother to madness. Thus, while Keyes condemns the act of mistreating the mentally disabled, he also displays an understanding of why this mistreatment occurs, enabling his readers to see through the eyes of someone who has experienced such ridicule firsthand. Charlie struggles with a tendency toward the same prejudice and condescension he has seen in other people. However, Charlie’s dual perspective allows him to understand that he is as human as anyone else, regardless of his level of intelligence.

The Tension between Intellect and Emotion

The fact that Charlie’s mental retardation affects both his intellectual and emotional development illustrates the difficulty—but not the impossibility—of developing both aspects simultaneously and without conflict. Charlie is initially warmhearted and trusting, but as his intelligence increases he grows cold, arrogant, and disagreeable. The more he understands about the world, the more he recoils from human contact. At his loneliest point, in Progress Report 12, Charlie shockingly decides that his genius has effectively erased his love for Alice. Professor Nemur and Fay indicate the incompatibility of intellect and emotion. Nemur is brilliant but humorless and friendless. Conversely, Fay acts foolishly and illogically because she is ruled entirely by her feelings. It is only with Alice’s encouragement that Charlie finally realizes he does not have to choose between his brain and his heart, the extremes represented by Nemur and Fay. Charlie learns to integrate intellect and emotion, finding emotional pleasure in both his intellectual work and his relationships. It is in this phase that he finds true fulfillment with Alice.

Changes in Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation Charlie’s initial leaps forward in mental ability are conveyed less by what he writes than by how he writes. Keyes signals Charlie’s changing mental state through the level of accuracy or inaccuracy of the grammar, spelling, and punctuation in Charlie’s progress reports. The first sentence of the novel, typical of Charlie’s early reports, is rife with errors: “Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on.” By Progress Report 9, we see Charlie’s immense progress in his composition of flawless sentences: “I had a nightmare last night, and this morning, after I woke up, I free-associated the way Dr. Strauss told me to do when I remember my dreams.” Similarly, Keyes initially conveys the loss of Charlie’s intelligence at the end with the erosion of his grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Flashbacks

Starting in Progress Report 9, Charlie is overwhelmed by a series of flashbacks to events from his youth. These flashbacks are provoked by experiences in the present: when Charlie is propositioned by the pregnant woman in Central Park, for example, he recalls his mother’s pregnancy with his sister. All of Charlie’s memories come in the form of such revelations and recall events of which he was not previously aware. These new memories hold new lessons for Charlie about his past and shed new light on his present neuroses. The flashbacks are interspersed with the narrative, so that the stories of Charlie’s present and past intertwine and reflect upon each other.

The Scientific Method

Charlie and Algernon are subjects in scientific experiments, and as Charlie becomes intelligent, he actually ends up internalizing much of the scientific methodology to which he has been subjected. Not only does Charlie become well versed in the technicalities of science, surpassing Professor Nemur’s knowledge, but he also approaches his emotional problems in a scientific manner. When Charlie realizes that the feelings of shame triggered by his emotional attachment to Alice render him incapable of making love to her, he devises a scientific experiment to test this principle. Charlie decides to try to pretend that Alice is Fay, to whom he is not so emotionally attached, in order to see if doing so will allow him to make love without panicking. Charlie is unable to go through with this experiment, however, because he realizes that he would be effectively placing Alice in the dehumanizing role of laboratory animal, a role he finds deplorable. The scientific pursuit of knowledge becomes Charlie’s guiding principle, but he is aware of the dangers of dehumanization that accompany it. In the end, when Charlie knows his intelligence will desert him and he contemplates suicide, he decides that he must go on living and continue to keep progress reports so that he can pass on knowledge of his unique journey.

Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Algernon As Algernon and Charlie undergo the same operation and the same testing, Algernon’s developments are good predictors of Charlie’s future. When Algernon begins to lose his intelligence, it is a chilling indication that Charlie’s own mental gains will be short-lived. Algernon also symbolizes Charlie’s status as a subject of the scientists: locked in a cage and forced to run through mazes at the scientists’ whim, Algernon is allowed no dignity and no individuality. Charlie’s freeing of Algernon from his cage and simultaneous decision to abandon the laboratory makes Algernon’s physical liberation a symbol of, and a precursor to, his own emotional independence.

Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge

The story of Adam and Eve, mentioned by Hilda, the nurse, and Fanny at the bakery, and then alluded to again in Charlie’s reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, bears a symbolic resemblance to Charlie’s journey from retardation to genius. Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, which costs them their innocence and causes them to be cast out of the Garden of Eden. As the forbidden fruit does for Adam and Eve, Charlie’s operation gives him the mental capacity to understand the world that he previously lacks. Just as it does to Adam and Eve, this knowledge causes Charlie to lose his innocence, not only in the form of his sexual virginity, but also in the form of his growing emotional bitterness and coldness. Hilda and Fanny both imply that Charlie, like Adam and Eve, has defied God’s will by becoming more intelligent. Charlie’s discovery that artificially induced intelligence cannot last implies that God or nature abhors unnatural intelligence. However, Keyes leaves us to judge for ourselves whether Charlie deserves the punishment of mental regression

The Window

Many of Charlie’s childhood memories involve looking through a window, which symbolizes the emotional distance that Charlie feels from others of normal mental ability. Shunned by his peers because of his disability, he remembers watching the other children play through a window in his apartment. When Charlie becomes intelligent, he often feels as if the boyhood Charlie is watching him through windows. The window represents all of the factors that keep the mentally retarded Charlie from feeling connected to society. Charlie’s increased intelligence enables him to cross over to the other side of the window, a place where members of society accept him. However, in crossing over, Charlie becomes just as distant from his former self as the children he used to see playing outside. When Charlie regresses into disability, he maintains an indefinable sense of his former genius self, but he says, “I dont think its me because its like I see him from the window.” The window is the unbridgeable divide between the two Charlies. The only point at which the brilliant Charlie feels that he is confronting the other Charlie face-to-face is when he drunkenly sees himself in a mirror, effectively a window to one’s interior self. Important Quotations

1. And he said that meens Im doing something grate for sience and Ill be famus and my name will go down in the books. I dont care so much about beeing famus. I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me. 2. “And I hate school! I hate it! I’ll stop studying, and I’ll be a dummy like him. I’ll forget everything I learned and then I’ll be just like him.” She runs out of the room, shrieking: “It’s happening to me already. I’m forgetting everything . . . I’m forgetting . . . I don’t remember anything I learned any more!”

Plot Overview

B ILBO BAGGINS LIVES a quiet, peaceful life in his comfortable hole at Bag End. Bilbo lives in a hole because he is a hobbit—one of a race of small, plump people about half the size of humans, with furry toes and a great love of good food and drink. Bilbo is quite content at Bag End, near the bustling hobbit village of Hobbiton, but one day his comfort is shattered by the arrival of the old wizard Gandalf, who persuades Bilbo to set out on an adventure with a group of thirteen militant dwarves. The dwarves are embarking on a great quest to reclaim their treasure from the marauding dragon Smaug, and Bilbo is to act as their “burglar.” The dwarves are very skeptical about Gandalf’s choice for a burglar, and Bilbo is terrified to leave his comfortable life to seek adventure. But Gandalf assures both Bilbo and the dwarves that there is more to the little hobbit than meets the eye. Shortly after the group sets out, three hungry trolls capture all of them except for Gandalf. Gandalf tricks the trolls into remaining outside when the sun comes up, and the sunlight turns the nocturnal trolls to stone. The group finds a great cache of weapons in the trolls’ camp. Gandalf and the dwarf lord Thorin take magic swords, and Bilbo takes a small sword of his own. The group rests at the elfish stronghold of Rivendell, where they receive advice from the great elf lord Elrond, then sets out to cross the Misty Mountains. When they find shelter in a cave during a snowstorm, a group of goblins who live in the caverns beneath the mountain take them prisoner. Gandalf leads the dwarves to a passage out of the mountain, but they accidentally leave behind Bilbo. Wandering through the tunnels, Bilbo finds a strange golden ring lying on the ground. He takes the ring and puts it in his pocket. Soon he encounters Gollum, a hissing, whining creature who lives in a pool in the caverns and hunts fish and goblins. Gollum wants to eat Bilbo, and the two have a contest of riddles to determine Bilbo’s fate. Bilbo wins by asking the dubious riddle, “What have I got in my pocket?” Gollum wants to eat Bilbo anyway, and he disappears to fetch his magic ring, which turns its wearer invisible. The ring, however, is the same one Bilbo has already found, and Bilbo uses it to escape from Gollum and flee the goblins. He finds a tunnel leading up out of the mountain and discovers that the dwarves and Gandalf have already escaped. Evil wolves known as Wargs pursue them, but Bilbo and his comrades are helped to safety by a group of great eagles and by Beorn, a creature who can change shape from a man into a bear. The company enters the dark forest of Mirkwood, and, making matters worse, Gandalf abandons them to see to some other urgent business. In the forest, the dwarves are caught in the webs of some giant spiders, and Bilbo must rescue them with his sword and magic ring. After slaying his first spider, Bilbo names his sword Sting. Shortly after escaping the spiders, the unlucky dwarves are captured by a group of wood elves who live near the river that runs through Mirkwood. Bilbo uses his ring to help the company escape and slips the dwarves away from the elves by hiding them inside barrels, which he then floats down the river. The dwarves arrive at Lake Town, a human settlement near the Lonely Mountain, under which the great dragon sleeps with Thorin’s treasure. After sneaking into the mountain, Bilbo talks to the sly dragon Smaug, who unwittingly reveals that his armorlike scales have a weak spot near his heart. When Bilbo steals a golden cup from the dragon’s hoard, Smaug is furious and flies out of the mountain to burn Lake Town in his rage. Bard, a heroic archer, has learned the secret about Smaug’s weakness from a thrush, and he fires an arrow into the dragon’s heart, killing him. Before Smaug dies, however, he burns Lake Town to the ground. The humans of Lake Town and the elves of Mirkwood march to the Lonely Mountain to seek a share of the treasure as compensation for their losses and aid, but Thorin greedily refuses, and the humans and elves besiege the mountain, trapping the dwarves and the hobbit inside. Bilbo sneaks out to join the humans in an attempt to bring peace. When Thorin learns what Bilbo has done, he is livid, but Gandalf suddenly reappears and saves Bilbo from the dwarf lord’s wrath. At this moment, an army of goblins and Wargs marches on the mountain, and the humans, elves, and dwarves are forced to band together to defeat them. The goblins nearly win, but the arrival of Beorn and the eagles helps the good armies win the battle. After the battle, Bilbo and Gandalf return to Hobbiton, where Bilbo continues to live. He is no longer accepted by respectable hobbit society, but he does not care. Bilbo now prefers to talk to elves and wizards, and he is deeply content to be back among the familiar comforts of home after his grand and harrowing adventures.

Individual Characters Bilbo Baggins - The hero of the story. Bilbo is a hobbit, “a short, human-like person.”Commonsensical and fastidious, Bilbo leads a quiet life in his comfortable hole at Bag End and, like most hobbits, is content to stay at home. But Bilbo possesses a great deal of untapped inner strength, and when the wizard Gandalf persuades Bilbo to join a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim their gold from a marauding dragon, Bilbo ends up playing a crucial role as the company’s burglar. Bilbo’s adventures awaken his courage and initiative and prove his relentless ability to do what needs to be done. Gandalf - A wise old wizard who always seems to know more than he reveals. Gandalf has a vast command of magic and tends to show up at just the moment he is needed most. Though he helps the dwarves in their quest (not least by making Bilbo go along with them), he does not seem to have any interest in their gold. He always has another purpose or plan in mind, but he rarely reveals his private thoughts. Thorin Oakenshield - A dwarf who leads his fellow dwarves on a trip to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their treasure from Smaug. Smaug’s bounty is Thorin’s inheritance, as it belonged to Thror, Thorin’s grandfather, the great King under the Mountain. Thorin is a proud, purposeful, and sturdy warrior, if a bit stubborn at times. As the novel progresses, his inability to formulate successful plans, his greed, and his reliance on Bilbo to save him at every turn make Thorin a somewhat unappealing figure, but he is partly redeemed by the remorse he shows before he dies. Gollum - A strange, small, slimy creature who lives deep in the caves of Moria beneath the Misty Mountains. There, Gollum broods over his “precious,”a magic ring, until he accidentally loses it and Bilbo finds it. We never learn exactly what kind of creature he is. Apparently, his true shape has been too deformed by years of living in darkness to be recognizable. Smaug - The great dragon who lives in the Lonely Mountain. Years ago, Smaug heard of the treasure that the dwarves had amassed in the mountain under Thror’s reign, and he drove them away to claim the gold for himself. His flaming breath can scorch a city, his huge wings can carry him great distances, and his armorlike hide is almost impenetrable. Smaug can speak and possesses a dark, sardonic sense of humor. Bard - The grim human who is the honorable captain of the guard in Lake Town, a human city built on Long Lake just south of the Lonely Mountain. With the help of information discovered by Bilbo and related by a thrush, Bard finds Smaug’s weak spot and kills him. Beorn - A man who can turn into a bear, Beorn helps Bilbo and the dwarves after their escape from the goblins. Elrond - The great leader of the elves at Rivendell. Elrond gives Bilbo’s group aid and helpful advice when they pass through Rivendell early in the novel. He is described in Chapter 3 as being “as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.” Dark Lord Sauron - An evil sorcerer and creator of the magic ring. Also called the Necromancer, Sauron is only mentioned in The Hobbit; he never actually appears. Thror - Thorin’s grandfather. Thror mined Moria, a series of caves under the Mountain, and discovered a wealth of gold and jewels. He became King under the Mountain, but before long, the dragon Smaug came and killed or scattered all of Thror’s people. The dragon has been guarding the treasure ever since, and Thorin wants to get back what is rightfully his.

Races Dwarves - Thorin’s group, composed of Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Balin, Oin, Gloin, Ori, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, none of whom is really developed as an individual character in the novel. The narrator describes dwarves unfavorably in Chapter 12, noting their greed and trickery. Some, however, are “decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.” Elves - The first creatures in Middle-Earth. Immortal unless killed in battle, they are fair-faced, with beautiful voices, and have a close communion with nature, which makes them wonderful craftsmen. There are actually two different varieties of elves: the wood elves and the high elves. The wood elves reside in Mirkwood and, as a result, have more suspicious and less wise tendencies than their high relatives. Humans - Humans appear in the settlement of Lake Town near the Lonely Mountain. Tolkien emphasizes their mortality, their lack of wisdom, their discordance with nature, and their rampant feuding, but he does not describe humans as inherently evil in the same way that he characterizes goblins and Wargs. Trolls - Short-tempered and dull-witted creatures who will eat just about anything, the trolls are based on mythological creatures taken from Old English and Anglo-Saxon poems and on figures from popular fairy tales and folklore. Tolkien has them speak with a cockney accent, the dialect of lower-class Londoners, which injects a modern joke into the fantasy epic. Goblins - Evil creatures encountered by Bilbo and company in Chapter 4. Goblins are infamous for their ability to make cruel weapons and torture devices. Wargs - Evil wolves that join forces with the Goblins at the Battle of the Five Armies in Chapters 17 and 18. The Wargs haunt and pursue Bilbo and the dwarves soon after Bilbo acquires the ring. Analysis of Major Characters

Bilbo

The protagonist and title character of The Hobbit, Bilbo is by far the novel’s most important figure. Bilbo’s thoughts, feelings, and actions form the focus of the novel and shape its plot. Bilbo’s central role is underscored by his appeal—he is not only the most important but also the most likable and honorable character. Even as the other participants in his quest become corrupted by greed, Bilbo maintains his common sense, courage, and eagerness to please. Bilbo’s understated charisma is a quality common to many protagonists in children’s literature. Another quality he shares with many heroes of children’s literature is his small size: as a hobbit, Bilbo is only half the size of a man. At the beginning of the novel, Bilbo is, like most hobbits, comfortable and complacent. He loves food, drink, and security, and he relishes his snug little hole at Bag End, Underhill. But as Gandalf says, there is more to Bilbo than meets the eye. Bilbo is a Baggins, the heir of a thoroughly respectable and conventional family, but his mother was a Took, an eccentric clan of hobbits noted for their love of excitement and adventure. When Gandalf enlists Bilbo’s help in Thorin’s quest for the treasure under the mountain, Bilbo begins a process of gradual development, transforming from a cautious homebody at the beginning of the novel to a brave and confident hero at the end. As the quest progresses, Bilbo shows a vast reserve of inner cunning and strength and slowly becomes the dominant force holding the group of hapless dwarves together. He saves them from the goblins by shouting for Gandalf, he rescues them from spiders and wood elves in Mirkwood, he finds the way into the mountain, he leads them to the treasure, he discovers Smaug’s weak spot, and he attempts to thwart Thorin’s greed and to bring peace to the feuding dwarves, elves, and humans. Bilbo’s heroic deeds are all the more remarkable because they fail to change him. He discovers capabilities that had been unknown to him, but he does not become arrogant or relinquish his values. In his final conversation with Bilbo, Thorin acknowledges the value of the simple lives of hobbits, even in a world marked by grim heroism and danger. Though Bilbo learns to thrive in this outer world, he draws strength from the simple source that guided his heroic quest. His decision to return to Hobbiton toward the end of the novel indicates that, despite his newfound heroism, Bilbo has stayed true to himself all along.

Gandalf

Though his history and character are more fully explored in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, Gandalf remains a looming mystery in The Hobbit, a constant reminder that Middle-Earth is more vast and cryptic than Bilbo realizes. A powerful wizard, Gandalf generally prefers to keep his powers and motives closely guarded. He never reveals, for instance, why he chooses to help Thorin in his quest; he certainly has no interest in the treasure, and he leaves the company in Mirkwood while he goes to fight against the Necromancer. Something both inspiring and dangerous defines Gandalf’s character—he is an unshakable bulwark against evil, and yet he seems to have an enlightened, almost godlike knowledge of every person’s place in the world. Gandalf’s sweeping, epic personality separates him from the vast majority of characters that commercial fantasy literature has produced in the decades since The Hobbit was first published. Though Gandalf can be viewed as the source of the stereotypical figure of fantasy wizard, Gandalf himself is more than just an old man with powerful spells and a pointy hat. Tolkien imbues Gandalf with a sense of heightened awareness, ensuring that Gandalf always knows more about what is happening than we do, even when the other characters are left in the dark.

Thorin

The leader of the dwarves who embark on the treasure quest in Chapter 2, Thorin is in many ways a typical member of his race: brave, stubborn, proud, and greedy for gold. Though his birthright and noble bearing initially make Thorin seem like a fairly heroic figure, the dwarf’s status quickly declines as Bilbo’s rises. Soon after Gandalf leaves the party, it becomes apparent that Thorin is not a true leader: he is incapable of formulating a plan, makes hasty and poor decisions, and generally relies on Bilbo to see him through his adventures, all the while treating Bilbo like an insignificant underling. Once Thorin gets his hands on Smaug’s treasure, he becomes irrationally greedy and obsessed with wealth, to the extent that he would rather wage a violent war than give the men from Lake Town their fair share of the treasure.Thorin is partially redeemed by his dying apology to Bilbo, but not even this act of remorse can fully redeem him. In general, the arrogant Thorin works as a foil for the unassuming Bilbo, setting off Bilbo’s best qualities and creating a leadership void that provides Bilbo the chance to seize the initiative and become a true hero.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Bilbo’s Heroism

The Hobbit’s main theme is Bilbo’s development into a hero, which more broadly represents the development of a common person into a hero. At the beginning of the story, Bilbo is timid, comfortable, and complacent in his secure little hole at Bag End. When Gandalf talks him into embarking on the quest with Thorin’s dwarves, Bilbo becomes so frightened that he faints. But as the novel progresses, Bilbo prevails in the face of danger and adversity, justifying Gandalf’s early claim that there is more to the little hobbit than meets the eye. Bilbo possesses hidden reserves of inner strength that even Bilbo himself cannot perceive when he firsts sets out on the quest. Confronting the trolls, escaping with Gollum’s ring, slaying the spider, rescuing the dwarves in Mirkwood, and speaking face-to-face with the great dragon Smaug all provide Bilbo with opportunities to test his resolve. As he builds confidence and resourcefulness, Bilbo emerges as a true hero. Because Tolkien acknowledged that the idea of hobbits was rooted in his experiences with rural Englishmen of his own time, Bilbo’s development might allegorically represent the heroism of England in World War I or the inner, latent heroism common to everyone. But given Tolkien’s stated distaste for allegory—his main motivation for writing was storytelling, not the exploration of a literary theme—it is questionable whether Bilbo’s story should be taken to refer to anyone except Bilbo himself.

Race, Lineage, and Character

The differences among Tolkien’s imaginary races are a major focus of the novel, particularly in its second half. Elves, dwarves, trolls, and goblins differ from one another physically, psychologically, and morally. These inherent racial differences drastically limit the possibility of individual choice but make moral distinctions easy to maintain. All goblins are evil, for example, and all elves are good. The notion of races having different moral qualities is reflected in the novel’s idea of nature. The good races are portrayed as being in harmony with nature, while the evil races are depicted as being at odds with it—hence the eagles’ decision to help the elves against the goblins. Some critics have suggested that the different races in The Hobbit were meant to represent different European nationalities, but Tolkien’s distaste for allegory makes this seem highly unlikely. Family lineage is another important factor that shapes identity in The Hobbit. Throughout Middle-Earth, one’s prospects, character, and social position are linked closely to family heritage. Bilbo’s conflicting feelings of fear and courage, for instance, are portrayed as a struggle between his Baggins side and his Took side, referring respectively to his father’s and his mother’s families. Thorin is prompted to seek the treasure under the mountain because it is his birthright, passed down from his grandfather, Thror. Bard’s heroism is in part attributed to his having descended from the lords of Dale. Whereas race is primarily a determinant of one’s moral standing, family has more to do with one’s specific personality: Bilbo is good because he is a hobbit, but he is adventurous because he is a Took.

Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Named Swords

Throughout epic literature, swords with names and lineages are the marks of great heroes. One of the most famous examples is King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. The swords named Orcrist and Glamdring that Thorin and Gandalf win from the trolls symbolize their heroic deeds. Bilbo’s decision to name his short sword Sting after killing the spider is a major turning point in his quest—it symbolizes his bravery and initiative, and presages his transformation into a hero.

Hobbits

Though the thematic importance of hobbits is highly debatable, Tolkien himself acknowledged that the nature of hobbits was based on the rural, middle-class English people among whom he lived. This symbol enables Tolkien to explore the contrast between ancient and modern worldviews as the modern-minded Bilbo travels the ancient world of Middle-Earth. Key Facts FULL TITLE · The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

AUTHOR · J. R. R. Tolkien

TYPE OF WORK · Novel

GENRE · Fantasy, heroic quest, satire, comic epic, children’s story

LANGUAGE · English

TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Roughly between 1929 and 1936 in Oxford, England; since the story was first told orally to Tolkien’s children, there is some doubt as to the exact dates of its composition.

DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · 1937

PUBLISHER · Houghton Mifflin

NARRATOR · The anonymous narrator is playful and humorous. He tends to speak in a comic voice with frequent asides and humorous descriptions of the characters. Bilbo, for instance, is often called Mr. Baggins or “the poor little fellow.”

POINT OF VIEW · The novel is narrated in the third person, almost exclusively from Bilbo’s point of view. The narration is omniscient, which means that the narrator not only relates Bilbo’s thoughts and feelings but also comments on them.

TONE · The narrator’s tone is light and casual, and he encourages his readers not to take his story too seriously by making frequent jokes at his characters’ expense. The narrator’s tone periodically becomes darker when the company faces great danger or defeat (as in the chapters taking place in Mirkwood), but for the most part, the story is brightly and warmly narrated.

TENSE · Past

SETTING (TIME) · The Third Age of Middle-Earth, 2941–2942

SETTINGS (PLACE) · Various locales in the imaginary world of Middle-Earth

PROTAGONIST · Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit

MAJOR CONFLICT · Bilbo’s timidity, complacency, and uncertainty work against his inner strength and heroism. As he travels and embarks on adventures, he must gradually learn to rely on his own abilities and to take the initiative to do what he feels is right.

RISING ACTION · Gandalf visits Bilbo and orders him to act as the burglar for the dwarves’ expedition to regain Thorin’s treasure from Smaug. Bilbo reluctantly departs, and with each increasingly difficult adventure, he accepts more responsibility for the welfare of the group.

CLIMAX · After Bilbo kills a spider in Chapter 8, he finally has enough confidence in his own abilities as a leader and hero. The Battle of the Five Armies in Chapter 17 is the climax of the expedition.

FALLING ACTION · Bilbo and Gandalf begin the journey home after regaining the treasure, resolving the differences between the dwarves, elves, and men, and defeating the Wargs and goblins. They first spend time with Beorn, then sojourn in Rivendell before returning to Hobbiton. Bilbo has a newfound appreciation for the comforts of his dwelling, but he recognizes that his view of society and his surroundings has undergone profound change.

THEMES · Bilbo’s heroism; race, lineage, and character

MOTIFS · Contrasting worldviews, the nature and geography of Middle-Earth

SYMBOLS · Named swords, hobbits

FORESHADOWING · The description of Bilbo’s Took blood; Gandalf’s insistence that there is more to Bilbo than meets the eye; Gollum’s addresses to his mysterious “precious”; Beorn’s warnings not to leave the path in Mirkwood; the thrush’s interest in Bilbo’s description of Smaug’s weakness

Important Quotations

1. “Let’s have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. You may (possibly) all live to thank me yet.” 2. “It’s got to ask uss a question, my preciouss, yes, yess, yess. Jusst one more question to guess, yes, yess.” 3. “Somehow the killing of this giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark . . . made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.‘I will give you a name,’ he said to it, ‘and I shall call you Sting.’ ” 4. “The most that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor little fellow doing it if he would; but they would all have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it. . . . There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.” 5. “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

About the Author

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specialising in Old and Middle English. Twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, he also wrote a number of stories, including most famously The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), which are set in a pre-historic era in an invented version of the world which he called by the Middle English name of Middle-earth. This was peopled by Men (and women), Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs (or Goblins) and of course Hobbits. He has regularly been condemned by the Eng. Lit. establishment, with honourable exceptions, but loved by literally millions of readers worldwide. In the 1960s he was taken up by many members of the nascent "counter-culture" largely because of his concern with environmental issues. In 1997 he came top of three British polls, organised respectively by Channel 4 / Waterstone's, the Folio Society, and SFX, the UK's leading science fiction media magazine, amongst discerning readers asked to vote for the greatest book of the 20th century. Please note also that his name is spelt Tolkien (there is no "Tolkein").

Summary

Billy lives on a farm. He wants two good coonhounds very badly, but his Papa cannot afford any. Billy works hard, selling fruit and bait to fishermen, so eventually he has enough money for the dogs. He gives the money to his grandfather, who orders the dogs for him. Billy sneaks off in the middle of the night to go to town and pick them up. While in town, other children pick on him, but he stands up for himself and is helped by the marshal. On his way home, he and his two pups sleep in a cave. Outside, they hear a mountain lion, and the pups bravely howl back. He decides to name them Old Dan and Little Ann. He can see that Old Dan is very brave, and that Little Ann is very smart. Once home, he wants to begin training them. He has to have a raccoon hide to train them with. His grandfather shows him a way to set a trap that will catch even a clever coon. Just when he is about to give up on the traps, he catches a coon. The next day he begins to train Old Dan and Little Ann. By the time raccoon season starts in the fall, they are ready. On the first night, his dogs tree a coon in the biggest tree imaginable. Billy immediately sees that it will take days to cut down. He is determined to cut it down, because he told his dogs that if they could tree a coon he would take care of the rest. His dogs are counting on him. His parents bring him food. His grandfather shows him how to make a scarecrow, to keep the coon in the tree so he can go home and eat dinner. When the big sycamore finally falls and his dogs catch the coon, he is very proud. Billy goes coon hunting almost every night. His father relieves him of his chores, and Billy gives him the money from his coonskins. Sometimes, coons try to trick his dogs, and Old Dan gets into trouble. One night, Dan gets stuck in a muskrat hole. Another night, he climbs a tree. Little Ann is usually too smart to get into trouble, but one night, after the first snowfall, she falls through the ice on the river. Billy barely rescues her. One day, Billy and his grandfather make a bet with Ruben and Rainie Pritchard, that Billy's hounds can catch the legendary "ghost coon." The Pritchard boys set out with Billy to see if Old Dan and Little Ann can catch the ghost coon. The coon leads the dogs on a long, complicated chase, and the Pritchard boys want to give up. But Billy is determined. Finally, when the dogs have the coon treed, Billy refuses to kill her. Just as Ruben starts to beat up Billy, Old Dan and Little Ann begin to attack the Pritchards' dog. Ruben runs to attack the dogs with an axe, but falls and kills himself. Billy is very distraught afterward. Finally he goes to Ruben's grave with some flowers, then feels much better. Billy's grandfather enters Billy in a coon-hunting contest. He, his grandfather, and his father take a buggy to the contest. It is filled with adult coon hunters with expensive gear and beautiful hounds. Somehow, Little Ann wins the beauty contest on the first day. The other coon hunters are very kind to Billy. Billy and his dogs qualify for the championship round. While Billy, his papa, his grandfather, and a judge are out hunting with coons, a winter blizzard begins. They lose track of the dogs, and Billy's grandfather falls and badly sprains his ankle. They stop and build a fire as day begins to break. Soon enough, they find the dogs, covered with ice. They have gotten just enough coons to win. Everyone at the tournament cheers. Billy has also won a jackpot of 300 dollars. Billy's mama and sisters are overjoyed. Billy keeps up his hunting. One night, however, his dogs tree a mountain lion. Old Dan howls defiantly, and the big cat attacks. Billy is horrified, and with his axe he enters the fray, hoping to save his dogs, but they end up having to save him. Eventually, the dogs defeat the mountain lion, but Old Dan is badly wounded. He dies the next day. Billy is heartbroken, but Little Ann is so sad that she loses her will to live, and dies a few days later. Billy's papa tries to tell him that it is all for the best, because with the money Billy has earned, the family hopes to move to town. Billy does not completely recover until on the day of the move; he goes to visit the dogs' graves and finds a giant red fern. According to Indian legend, only an angel can plant a red fern. Billy and his family look at the fern in awe, and he feels ready to leave for the town. Characters

Billy Colman - The protagonist of Where the Red Fern Grows. At the start of the novel he is ten years old. He has three younger sisters. He is filled with "puppy love"--he wants a dog badly. He is a brave boy, full of determination and grit. Old Dan - Old Dan is one of Billy's red bone coonhounds. He is bigger and stronger than Little Ann, the other hound. He will never leave a raccoon once he is on its trail, although sometimes his impatience gets the best of him, and he loses the trail. Little Ann - Little Ann is one of Billy's red bone coonhounds. She is smaller but smarter than Old Dan. She is a beautiful hound, and will not stop hunting until she knows exactly where the coon is hiding. No coon can trick her. For a hound, she is extremely playful. Papa - Billy's papa is a good, honest farmer. He is poor, but is working hard so his family can move to the city. Once Billy buys his hounds, he starts to treat Billy like a man. Grandfather - Billy's grandfather runs a general store and a small mill. His store is a place where coon hunters gather to talk about hunting. He is full of imagination, and gets Billy into a lot of adventures. Mama - Billy's mama is part Cherokee. She is very religious and always enjoys answering Billy's questions about God. She worries about him when he is hunting, but is also very proud of him. She wants very much to move to town so the children can get a good education. Billy's Sisters - Billy has three sisters, all younger than him. They help with chores, but are often too little to understand what is going on. Ruben Pritchard - Ruben is the older of the two Pritchard brothers. They come from a strange, disliked family. Ruben is full of insults and ready to fight. While on a hunt with Billy and Rainie, he falls on an axe and dies. Rainie Pritchard - Rainie is the younger of the two Pritchard brothers. They come from a strange, disliked family. Rainie is not very bright, but he is full of tricks and is always trying to make bets.

Quotes

“Don't touch it mamma it was planted by an angel.”

“You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over.” Plot Overview

E STHER GREENWOOD, A COLLEGE STUDENT from Massachusetts, travels to New York to work on a magazine for a month as a guest editor. She works for Jay Cee, a sympathetic but demanding woman. Esther and eleven other college girls live in a women’s hotel. The sponsors of their trip wine and dine them and shower them with presents. Esther knows she should be having the time of her life, but she feels deadened. The execution of the Rosenbergs worries her, and she can embrace neither the rebellious attitude of her friend Doreen nor the perky conformism of her friend Betsy. Esther and the other girls suffer food poisoning after a fancy banquet. Esther attempts to lose her virginity with a UN interpreter, but he seems uninterested. She questions her abilities and worries about what she will do after college. On her last night in the city, shegoes on a disastrous blind date with a man named Marco, who tries to rape her. Esther wonders if she should marry and live a conventional domestic life, or attempt to satisfy her ambition. Buddy Willard, her college boyfriend, is recovering from tuberculosis in a sanitarium, and wants to marry Esther when he regains his health. To an outside observer, Buddy appears to be the ideal mate: he is handsome, gentle, intelligent, and ambitious. But he does not understand Esther’s desire to write poetry, and when he confesses that he slept with a waitress while dating Esther, Esther thinks him a hypocrite and decides she cannot marry him. She sets out to lose her virginity as though in pursuit of the answer to an important mystery. Esther returns to the Boston suburbs and discovers that she has not been accepted to a writing class she had planned to take. She will spend the summer with her mother instead. She makes vague plans to write a novel, learn shorthand, and start her senior thesis. Soon she finds the feelings of unreality she experienced in New York taking over her life. She is unable to read, write, or sleep, and she stops bathing. Her mother takes her to Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist who prescribes electric shock therapy for Esther. Esther becomes more unstable than ever after this terrifying treatment, and decides to kill herself. She tries to slit her wrists, but can only bring herself to slash her calf. She tries to hang herself, but cannot find a place to tie the rope in her low-ceilinged house. At the beach with friends, she attempts to drown herself, but she keeps floating to the surface of the water. Finally, she hides in a basement crawl space and takes a large quantity of sleeping pills. Esther awakens to find herself in the hospital. She has survived her suicide attempt with no permanent physical injuries. Once her body heals, she is sent to the psychological ward in the city hospital, where she is uncooperative, paranoid, and determined to end her life. Eventually, Philomena Guinea, a famous novelist who sponsors Esther’s college scholarship, pays to move her to aprivate hospital. In this more enlightened environment, Esther comes to trust her new psychiatrist, a woman named Dr. Nolan. She slowly begins to improve with a combination of talk therapy, insulin injections, and properly administered electric shock therapy. She becomes friends with Joan, a woman from her hometown and college who has had experiences similar to Esther’s. She is repulsed, however, when Joan makes a sexual advance toward her. As Esther improves, the hospital officials grant her permission to leave the hospital from time to time. During one of these excursions, she finally loses her virginity with a math professor named Irwin. She begins bleeding profusely and has to go to the emergency room. One morning, Joan, who seemed to be improving, hangs herself. Buddy comes to visit Esther, and both understand that their relationship is over. Esther will leave the mental hospital in time to start winter semester at college. She believes that she has regained a tenuous grasp on sanity, but knows that the bell jar of her madness could descend again at any time.

Character List Esther Greenwood - The protagonist and narrator of the novel, she has just finished her junior year of college. Esther grew up in the Boston suburbs with her mother and brother. Her father died when she was nine years old. Esther is attractive, talented, and lucky, but uncertainty plagues her, and she feels a disturbing sense of unreality. Mrs. Greenwood - Esther’s mother, she has had a difficult life. Mrs. Greenwood lost her husband when her children were still young. Because her husband had inadequate life insurance, she struggles to make a living by teaching typing and shorthand. Practical and traditional, she loves Esther and worriesabout her future, but cannot understand her. Buddy Willard - Esther’s college boyfriend, he is an athletic, intelligent, good-looking man who graduated from Yale and went to medical school. Buddy cares for Esther but has conventional ideas about women’s roles and fails to understand Esther’s interest in poetry. He represents everything that, according to society, Esther should want but does not.

Doctor Nolan - Esther’s psychiatrist at the private mental hospital. Esther comes to trust and love Dr. Nolan, who acts as a kind and understanding surrogate mother. Progressive and unconventional, Dr. Nolan encourages Esther’s unusual thinking.

Doreen - Esther’s companion in New York, a blond, beautiful southern girl with a sharp tongue. Esther envies Doreen’s nonchalance in social situations, and the two share a witty, cynical perspective on their position as guest editors for a fashion magazine. Doreen represents a rebellion against societal convention that Esther admires but cannot entirely embrace. Joan Gilling - Esther’s companion in the mental hospital. A large, horsy woman, Joan was a year ahead of Esther in college, and Esther envied her social and athletic success. Joan once dated Buddy, Esther’s boyfriend. In the mental ward, Esther comes to think of Joan as her double, someone with similar experiences to Esther’s whom Esther does not particularly like, but with whom she feels an affinity. Jay Cee - Esther’s boss at the magazine, an ambitious career woman who encourages Esther to be ambitious. She is physically unattractive, but moves self-confidently in her world. She treats Esther brusquely but kindly. Betsy - A pretty, wholesome girl from Kansas who becomes Esther’s friend when they both work at the magazine. Esther feels she is more like Betsy than she is like Doreen, but she cannot relate to Betsy’s cheerfulness and optimism. Constantin - A UN simultaneous interpreter who takes Esther on a date. Handsome, thoughtful, and accomplished, he seems sexually uninterested in Esther, who is willing to let him seduce her. Marco - A tall, dark, well-dressed Peruvian who takes Esther on a date to a country club. Marco expresses dashing self-confidence, but also a hatred of women. Violent and sadistic, he believes that all women are sluts. Irwin - Esther’s first lover, he is a tall, intelligent, homely math professor at Harvard. Irwin is charming and seductive but not particularly responsible or caring. Doctor Gordon - Esther’s first psychiatrist, whom she distrusts. He is good-looking and has an attractive family, and Esther thinks him conceited. He does not know how to help Esther, and ends up doing her more harm than good. Philomena Guinea - A famous, wealthy novelist who gives Esther a scholarship to attend college and pays for Esther’s stay in the private mental hospital. She is elderly, generous, and successful. Mrs. Willard - A friend of Esther’s mother and the mother of Esther’s sometime-boyfriend, Buddy Willard. Mrs. Willard, who feels protective of her son, has traditional ideas about the roles men and women should play. Lenny Shepherd - Doreen’s love interest, Lenny is a New York DJ and smooth older man. He wears cowboy-style clothes and has a cowboy-style home. Eric - A past acquaintance of Esther’s with whom she had her most open conversation about sex. He is a southern prep school boy who lost his virginity with a prostitute and now associates love with chastity and sex with behaving like an animal. Dodo Conway - The Greenwoods’ neighbor, Dodo is a Catholic woman with six children and a seventh on the way. She lives unconventionally, but everyone likes her. Jody - A friend of Esther’s, with whom she is supposed to live while she takes a summer writing course. Jody is friendly and tries to be helpful, but cannot reach Esther. Valerie - A friend of Esther’s in the private mental hospital. Valerie has had a lobotomy, and is friendly and relaxed.

Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Growth Through Pain and Rebirth

The Bell Jar tells the story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, but it does not follow the usual trajectory of adolescent development into adulthood. Instead of undergoing a progressive education in the ways of the world, culminating in an entrance into adulthood, Esther regresses into madness. Experiences intended to be life-changing in a positive sense—Esther’s first time in New York City, her first marriage proposal, her success in college—are upsetting and disorienting to her. Instead of finding new meaning in living, Esther wants to die. As she slowly recovers from her suicide attempt, she aspires simply to survive. Esther’s struggles and triumphs seem more heroic than conventional achievements. Her desire to die rather than live a false life can be interpreted as noble, and the gradual steps she takes back to sanity seem dignified. Esther does not mark maturity in the traditional way of fictional heroines, by marrying and beginning a family, but by finding the strength to reject the conventional model of womanhood. Esther emerges from her trials with a clear understanding of her own mental health, the strength that she summoned to help her survive, and increased confidence in her skepticism of society’s mores. She describes herself, with characteristic humor, as newly “patched, retreaded and approved for the road.”

The Emptiness of Conventional Expectations

Esther observes a gap between what society says she should experience and what she does experience, and this gap intensifies her madness. Society expects women of Esther’s age and station to act cheerful, flexible, and confident, and Esther feels she must repress her natural gloom, cynicism, and dark humor. She feels she cannot discuss or think about the dark spots in life that plague her: personal failure, suffering, and death. She knows the world of fashion she inhabits in New York should make her feel glamorous and happy, but she finds it filled with poison, drunkenness, and violence. Her relationships with men are supposed to be romantic and meaningful, but they are marked by misunderstanding, distrust, and brutality. Esther almost continuously feels that her reactions are wrong, or that she is the only one to view the world as she does, and eventually she begins to feel a sense of unreality. This sense of unreality grows until it becomes unbearable, and attempted suicide and madness follow.

The Restricted Role of Women in 1950s America

Esther’s sense of alienation from the world around her comes from the expectations placed upon her as a young woman living in 1950s America. Esther feels pulled between her desire to write and the pressure she feels to settle down and start a family. While Esther’s intellectual talents earn her prizes, scholarships, and respect, many people assume that she most wants to become a wife and mother. The girls at her college mock her studiousness and only show her respect when she begins dating a handsome and well-liked boy. Her relationship with Buddy earns her mother’s approval, and everyone expects Esther to marry him. Buddy assumes that Esther will drop her poetic ambitions as soon as she becomes a mother, and Esther also assumes that she cannot be both mother and poet. Esther longs to have adventures that society denies her, particularly sexual adventures. She decides to reject Buddy for good when she realizes he represents a sexual double standard. He has an affair with a waitress while dating Esther, but expects Esther to remain a virgin until she marries him. Esther understands her first sexual experience as a crucial step toward independence and adulthood, but she seeks this experience not for her own pleasure but rather to relieve herself of her burdensome virginity. Esther feels anxiety about her future because she can see only mutually exclusive choices: virgin or whore, submissive married woman or successful but lonely career woman. She dreams of a larger life, but the stress even of dreaming such a thing worsens her madness.

The Perils of Psychiatric Medicine The Bell Jar takes a critical view of the medical profession, in particular psychiatric medicine. This critique begins with Esther’s visit to Buddy’s medical school. There, Esther is troubled by the arrogance of the doctors and their lack of sympathy for the pain suffered by a woman in labor. When Esther meets her first psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, she finds him self-satisfied and unsympathetic. He does not listen to her, and prescribes a traumatic and unhelpful shock therapy treatment. Joan, Esther’s acquaintancein the mental hospital, tells a similar tale of the insensitivity of male psychiatrists. Some of the hospitals in which Esther stays are frighteningly sanitized and authoritarian. The novel does not paint an entirely negative picture of psychiatric care, however. When Esther goes to a more enlightened, luxurious institution, she begins to heal under the care of Dr. Nolan, a progressive female psychiatrist. The three methods of 1950s psychiatric treatment—talk therapy, insulin injections, and electroshock therapy—work for Esther under the proper and attentive care of Dr. Nolan. Even properly administered therapy does not receive unmitigated praise, however. Shock therapy, for example, works by clearing the mind entirely. After one treatment, Esther finds herself unable to think about knives. This inability comes as a relief, but it also suggests that the therapy works by the dubious method of blunting Esther’s sharp intelligence.

Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Bell Jar

The bell jar is an inverted glass jar, generally used to display an object of scientific curiosity, contain a certain kind of gas, or maintain a vacuum. For Esther, the bell jar symbolizes madness. When gripped by insanity, she feels as if she is inside an airless jar that distorts her perspective on the world and prevents her from connecting with the people around her. At the end of the novel, the bell jar has lifted, but she can sense that it still hovers over her, waiting to drop at any moment.

The Fig Tree

Early in the novel, Esther reads a story about a Jewish man and a nun who meet under a fig tree. Their relationship is doomed, just as she feels her relationship with Buddy is doomed. Later, the tree becomes a symbol of the life choices that face Esther. She imagines that each fig represents a different life. She can only choose one fig, but because she wants all of them, she sits paralyzed with indecision, and the figs rot and fall to the ground.

Headlines

Chapter 16 marks one of Esther’s most debilitating bouts with her illness. In this chapter, headlines are reprinted in the text of the novel. Joan gives Esther actual headlines from articles reporting Esther’s disappearance and attempted suicide. These headlines symbolize Esther’s exposure, her effect on others, and the gap between Esther’s interpretation of experiences and the world’s interpretation of them. First, they show Esther that the public knows about her behavior —she does not act in a vacuum, but in the interested eye of the world. The headlines also demonstrate the power Esther’s behavior has on people who are almost strangers to her. Joan, for example, says the headlines inspired her to move to New York and attempt suicide. Finally, the headlines represent the dissonance between Esther’s experience of herself and others’experience of her. While Esther sees only pain and swallowing pills in the darkness, the world sees a sensational story of a missing girl, a hunt in the woods, and the shocking discovery of Esther in her own house.

The Beating Heart

When Esther tries to kill herself, she finds that her body seems determined to live. Esther remarks that if it were up to her, she could kill herself in no time, but she must outwit the tricks and ruses of her body. The beating heart symbolizes this bodily desire for life. When she tries to drown herself, her heart beats, “I am I am I am.” It repeats the same phrase when Esther attends Joan’s funeral.

Key Facts

FULL TITLE · The Bell Jar

AUTHOR · Sylvia Plath

TYPE OF WORK · Novel

GENRE · Coming-of-age novel; autobiographical fiction

LANGUAGE · English

TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · First draft as early as 1957, Cambridge, England; completed in 1962, Devon, England

DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · January 1963, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas

PUBLISHER · William Heinemann Limited (1963); Faber and Faber (first edition under Plath’s name, 1966); Harper and Row (first American edition, 1971)

NARRATOR · Esther Greenwood

POINT OF VIEW · First person

TONE · Matter-of-fact; cynical; terse; detached; girlish

TENSE · Past

SETTING (TIME) · June 1953–January 1954

SETTING (PLACE) · New York City; the Boston suburbs; hospitals in and around Boston

PROTAGONIST · Esther Greenwood

MAJOR CONFLICT · Esther struggles against her oppressive environment and encroaching madness. RISING ACTION · Esther spends a month as a guest editor in New York. When she returns home, she finds herself unable to read, write, or sleep. She receives her first shock treatment, and contemplates methods of suicide.

CLIMAX · Esther almost succeeds in killing herself.

FALLING ACTION · Esther recovers in a city hospital and then in a private mental hospital, where she finds a psychiatrist whom she can trust. After losing her virginity, she prepares to leave the hospital.

THEMES · Growth through pain and rebirth; the emptiness of conventional expectations; the restricted role of women in 1950s America; the perils of psychiatric medicine

MOTIFS · News and fashion media; mirrors; blood

SYMBOLS · The bell jar; the fig tree; headlines; the beating heart

FORESHADOWING · Esther’s semi-suicidal plunge down the ski slopes foreshadows her later, more systematic suicide attempts.

Important Quotations Explained

1. Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo. 2. When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue. Instead of the world being divided up into Catholics and Protestants or Republicans and Democrats or white men and black men or even men and women, I saw the world divided into people who had slept with somebody and people who hadn’t, and this seemed the only really significant difference between one person and another. I thought a spectacular change would come over me the day I crossed the boundary line. 3. [W]herever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air. 4. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream. 5. How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sylvia Plath

On October 27, 1932, Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, was a master’s student at Boston University when she met Plath’s father, Otto Plath, who was her professor. They were married in January of 1932. Otto taught both German and biology, with a focus on apiology, the study of bees. In 1940, when Sylvia was eight years old, her father died as a result of complications from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined her relationships and her poems— most notably in her elegaic and infamous poem, "Daddy." Even in her youth, Plath was ambitiously driven to succeed. She kept a journal from the age of 11 and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. Her first national publication was in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950, just after graduating from high school. SIn 1950, Plath matriculated at Smith College. She was an exceptional student, and despite a deep depression she went through in 1953 and a subsequent suicide attempt, she managed to graduate summa cum laude in 1955.After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet, Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956.Plath returned to Massachusetts in 1957, and began studying with Robert Lowell. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England where she gave birth to the couple's two children, Frieda and Nicholas Hughes, in 1960 and 1962, respectively. In 1962, Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, in a deep depression, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel. In 1963, Plath published a semi- autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Then, on February 11, 1963, during one of the worst English winters on record, Plath wrote a note to her downstairs neighbor instructing him to call the doctor, then she committed suicide using her gas oven. Plath’s poetry is often associated with the Confessional movement, and compared to poets such as her teacher, Robert Lowell, and fellow student Anne Sexton. Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme. Although only Colossus was published while she was alive, Plath was a prolific poet, and in addition to Ariel, Hughes published three other volumes of her work posthumously, including The Collected Poems, which was the recipient of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. She was the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize after death.

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