Annotated AP List 1984—by George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party.[1] Life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control, accomplished with a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (Ingsoc), which is administrated by a privileged Inner Party élite.[2] Yet they too are subordinated to the totalitarian cult of personality of Big Brother, the deified Party leader who rules with a philosophy that decries individuality and reason as thoughtcrimes; thus the people of Oceania are subordinated to a supposed collective greater good.[3] The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the historical record is congruent with the current party doctrine.[4] Because of the childhood trauma of the destruction of his family — the disappearances of his parents and sister — Winston Smith secretly hates the Party, and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. As literary political fiction and as dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style, because many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and memory hole, have become contemporary vernacular since its publication in 1949. Moreover, Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective Orwellian, which refers to official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past in service to a totalitarian political agenda. [5] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nineteen Eighty- Four in 13th place on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. A Separate Peace—by John Knowles. Gene Forrester, the protagonist, returns to his old prep school, Devon (a thinly-veiled portrayal of Knowles' own alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy), fourteen years after he graduated to visit two places he regards as "fearful sites:" a flight of marble stairs and a tree by the river. First, he examines the stairs and notices that they are made of very hard marble. He then trudges through the mud to the tree. The tree brings back memories of Gene's time as a student at Devon. From this point, the plot follows Gene's description of the time span from the summer of 1942 to the summer of 1943. In 1942, he was 16 years old and living at Devon with his best friend and roommate, Phineas (nicknamed Finny). At the time, World War II is taking place, and has a prominent effect on the story. Gene and Finny, despite being polar opposites in personality, become fast friends at Devon: Gene's quiet, introverted intellectual personality complements Finny's more extroverted, carefree, athletic demeanor. During the time at Devon, Gene goes through a period of intense friendship with Finny. One of Finny's ideas during Gene's "Sarcastic Summer of 1942" is to create a "Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session," with Gene and himself as charter members. Finny creates a rite of initiation by having members jump into the Devon River from a large, high tree. He also creates a game called "blitzball" (from the German blitzkrieg) in which there is no winner. Following their period of intense friendship was a period of intense one-sided rivalry during which Gene strives to out-do Finny academically, since he believes Finny is trying to out-do him. This rivalry culminates (and is ended) when, as Finny and Gene are about to jump off the tree, Finny falls out of the tree and shatters his leg when Gene purposely jounces the branch they were both standing on. Because of his "accident", Finny learns from the doctor that he will never again be able to compete in sports that are most dear to him. The remainder of the story revolves around Gene's attempts to come to grips with who he is, why he shook the branch, and with human nature. Gene tells Finny that he caused Finny's fall. At first Finny does not believe him and afterward feels extremely hurt. During a meeting of the Golden Fleece Debating Society, a debate/trial organization that Brinker Hadley set up, Gene is confronted about the "accident" by Brinker, who accuses Gene of trying to kill Finny. Faced with the evidence, Finny leaves shamefully before Gene's deed is confirmed. On the way out, Finny falls down a flight of stairs (the ones Gene visits at the beginning of the novel), and again breaks the leg he had shattered before. Finny dismisses any of Gene's attempts to apologize at first, but he soon realizes that the "accident" was impulsive and anger-based. The two forgive each other. The next day, Finny dies during the operation to set the bone. The doctor surmises that Finny died when bone marrow entered the blood stream, and stopped his heart during the surgery. Gene does not cry over Finny, but learns much from how he lived his life, stating that when Finny died, he took his (Gene's) anger with him. In Finny's death, Gene could finally come to terms with himself. Absalom, Absalom!—by William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who comes to Mississippi with the complementary aims of becoming rich and a powerful family patriarch. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson and his roommate at Harvard University, Shreve. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in non-chronological order and often with differing details, resulting in a peeling-back-the-onion way of revealing the true story of the Sutpens to the reader. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen’s. Quentin's father then fills in some of the details to Quentin, as well. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen's story. Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. Sutpen obtains one hundred square miles of land from a local Native American tribe and immediately begins building a large plantation called Sutpen’s Hundred, including an ostentatious mansion. All he needs to complete his plan is a wife to bear him a few children (particularly a son to be his heir), so he ingratiates himself with a local merchant and marries the man’s daughter, Ellen Coldfield. Ellen bears Sutpen two children, a son named Henry and a daughter named Judith, both of whom are destined for tragedy. Henry goes to the University of Mississippi and meets a fellow student named Charles Bon, who is ten years his senior. Henry brings Bon home for Christmas, where he and Judith begin a quiet romance that leads to a presumed engagement. However, Sutpen realizes that Charles Bon is his son from an earlier marriage and moves to stop the proposed union. Sutpen had worked on a plantation in Haiti as the overseer and, after subduing a slave uprising, was offered the hand of the plantation owner's daughter, Eulalia Bon, who bore him a son, Charles. Sutpen had not known that Eulalia was of mixed race until after the marriage and birth of Charles, but when he found out he had been deceived, he renounced the marriage as void and left his wife and child (though leaving them his fortune as part of his own moral recompense). The reader also later learns of Sutpen's childhood, where young Thomas learned that society could base human worth on material worth. It is this episode that sets into motion Thomas' plan to start a dynasty. Henry, possibly because of his own potentially (and mutually) incestuous feelings for his sister, as well as quasi-romantic feelings for Charles himself, is keen to see the two wed (allowing him to imagine himself as surrogate for both). When Sutpen tells Henry that Charles is his half-brother and that Judith must not be allowed to marry him, Henry refuses to believe, repudiates his birthright, and accompanies Charles to his home in New Orleans. They then return to Mississippi to enlist in their University company where they join the Confederate Army and fight in the Civil War. During the war, Henry wrestles with his conscience until he presumably resolves to allow the marriage of half-brother and sister; this resolution changes, however, when Sutpen reveals to Henry that Charles is part black. At the conclusion of the war, Henry enacts his father's interdiction of marriage between Charles and Judith, killing Charles at the gates to the mansion and then fleeing into self-exile. Thomas Sutpen returns from the war and begins to repair his home, whose hundred square miles have been reduced by carpetbaggers and punitive northern action to one, and dynasty. He proposes to Rosa Coldfield, his dead wife's younger sister, and she accepts. However, Sutpen insults Rosa by demanding that she bear him a son before the wedding takes place prompting her to leave Sutpen's Hundred.