The Lord of the Rings By J.R.R Tolkien

This article is about the novel. For the film series, see The Lord of the Rings (film series). For other uses, see The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation).

The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien's unused cover designs for the three volumes which would later be used for the 50th anniversary editions of the books
Volumes: The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King
Author	J. R. R. Tolkien
Country	England, United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	High fantasy Adventure
Publisher	George Allen & Unwin
Published	29 July 1954, 11 November 1954 & 20 October 1955
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Preceded by	The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II.^[1] It is the second best-selling novel ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.^[2]
The title of the novel refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron,^{[note 1]} who had in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a Hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across north-west Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but also the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men Aragorn, a Ranger of the North and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas, an Elven prince; and Gandalf, a Wizard.
The work was initially intended by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set, the other to be The Silmarillion, but this idea was dismissed by his publisher.^[4][5] For economic reasons The Lord of the Rings was published in three volumes over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955, thus creating the now familiar Lord of the Rings trilogy.^[4][6] The three volumes were entitled The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Structurally, the novel is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material included at the end of the third volume. Some editions combine the entire work into a single volume. The Lord of the Rings has since been reprinted numerous times and translated into many languages.
Tolkien's work has been the subject of extensive analysis of its themes and origins. Although a major work in itself, the story was only the last movement of a larger epic Tolkien had worked on since 1917, in a process he described as mythopoeia.^{[7][not in citation given (See discussion.)]} Influences on this earlier work, and on the story of The Lord of the Rings, include philology, mythology, religion and the author's distaste for the effects of industrialization, as well as earlier fantasy works and Tolkien's experiences in World War I.^[1] The Lord of the Rings in its turn is considered to have had a great effect on modern fantasy; the impact of Tolkien's works is such that the use of the words "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" have been recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary.^[8]
The enduring popularity of The Lord of the Rings has led to numerous references in popular culture, the founding of many societies by fans of Tolkien's works,^[9] and the publication of many books about Tolkien and his works. The Lord of the Rings has inspired, and continues to inspire, artwork, music, films and television, video games, and subsequent literature. Award-winning adaptations of The Lord of the Rings have been made for radio, theatre, and film

To the Lighthouse

To the Lighthouse is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, which centres on the Ramsays and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporal and psychological elements.
To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls childhood emotions and highlights adult relationships. Among the book's many tropes and themes are those of loss, subjectivity, and the problem of perception.
In 1998, the Modern Library named To the Lighthouse No. 15 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present

Part I: The Window

The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye. The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the next day. This prediction is denied by Mr Ramsay, who voices his certainty that the weather will not be clear, an opinion that forces a certain tension between Mr and Mrs Ramsay, and also between Mr Ramsay and James. This particular incident is referred to on various occasions throughout the chapter, especially in the context of Mr and Mrs Ramsay's relationship.
The Ramsays have been joined at the house by a number of friends and colleagues, one of them being Lily Briscoe, who begins the novel as a young, uncertain painter attempting a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and James. Briscoe finds herself plagued by doubts throughout the novel, doubts largely fed by the claims of Charles Tansley, another guest, who asserts that women can neither paint nor write. Tansley himself is an admirer of Mr Ramsay and his philosophical treatises.
The section closes with a large dinner party. When Augustus Carmichael, a visiting poet, asks for a second serving of soup, Mr Ramsay nearly snaps at him. Mrs Ramsay is herself out of sorts when Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle, two acquaintances whom she has brought together in engagement, arrive late to dinner, as Minta has lost her grandmother’s brooch on the beach.

Part II: Time Passes

The second section gives a sense of time passing, absence, and death. Ten years pass, during which the four-year First World War begins and ends. Mrs Ramsay passes away, Prue dies from complications of childbirth, and Andrew is killed in the war. Mr Ramsay is left adrift without his wife to praise and comfort him during his bouts of fear and his anguish regarding the longevity of his philosophical work.

Part III: The Lighthouse

In the final section, “The Lighthouse,” some of the remaining Ramsays and other guests return to their summer home ten years after the events of Part I. Mr Ramsay finally plans on taking the long-delayed trip to the lighthouse with his son James and daughter Cam(illa). The trip almost does not happen, as the children are not ready, but they eventually set off. As they travel, the children are silent in protest at their father for forcing them to come along. However, James keeps the sailing boat steady and rather than receiving the harsh words he has come to expect from his father, he hears praise, providing a rare moment of empathy between father and son; Cam's attitude towards her father changes also, from resentment to eventual admiration.
They are accompanied by the sailor Macalister and his son, who catches fish during the trip. The son cuts a piece of flesh from a fish he has caught to use for bait, throwing the injured fish back into the sea.
While they set sail for the lighthouse, Lily attempts to finally complete the painting she has held in her mind since the start of the novel. She reconsiders her memory of Mrs and Mr Ramsay, balancing the multitude of impressions from ten years ago in an effort to reach towards an objective truth about Mrs Ramsay and life itself. Upon finishing the painting (just as the sailing party reaches the lighthouse) and seeing that it satisfies her, she realizes that the execution of her vision is more important to her than the idea of leaving some sort of legacy in her work.

Publication history

Upon completing the draft of this, her most autobiographical novel, Woolf described it as 'easily the best of my books' and her husband Leonard thought it a "'masterpiece' … entirely new 'a psychological poem'". They published it together at their Hogarth Press in London in 1927. The first impression of 3000 copies of 320 pages measuring 7.5 inches by 5 inches was bound in blue cloth. The book outsold all Woolf's previous novels, and the proceeds enabled the Woolfs to buy a car.

Bibliography

• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, (London: Hogarth, 1927) First edition; 3000 copies initially with a second impression in June.
• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1927) First US edition; 4000 copies initially with at least five reprints in the same year.

Film, TV, music, or theatrical adaptations

• To the Lighthouse, a 1983 telefilm starring Rosemary Harris, Michael Gough, Suzanne Bertish, and Kenneth Branagh.
• To the Lighthouse (play) written by Adele Edling Shank, music composed by Paul Dresher. The 2007 world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre was directed by Les Waters.
• Song To The Lighthouse by Patrick Wolf.
• Toby Litt's novel Finding Myself contains many references of To the Lighthouse. The fictional "author" is inspired by the book to set up her own holiday with friends by the sea, writing her own novel, "From the Lighthouse".
• Jayne Joso's short story, also titled To the Lighthouse is inspired by Woolf's novel.

Adam Bede, the first novel written by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), was published in 1859. It was published pseudonymously, even though Evans was a well-published and highly respected scholar of her time. The novel has remained in print ever since, and is used in university studies of 19th-century English literature

Adam Bede
First edition title page.
Author(s)	George Eliot
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	John Blackwood
Publication date	1859
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

Twilight in Delhi By Ali Ahmad

Twilight in Delhi
Twilight in Delhi is Ahmed Ali's first novel, originally published in English in Britain, 1940. The novel addresses India's changing social, political, and cultural climate following colonialism.Ahmed Ali a prolific Pakistani writer sets his masterpiece, Twilight in Delhi, in late 19^th century .he wants to portray a picture of Delhi in its true perspective .like he said ….my purpose was to depict a phase of our national life and the decay of a whole culture, a particular mode of thought and living, now dead and gone already right before our eyes.

Twilight in Delhi provides a real and accurate portrait of the static and decaying tradition of culture of Delhi while the British arranged the coronation Durbar of 1911 and draw up plans for new imperial city, new Delhi, the novel has planned at reveal interconnecting levels and has been praised for its lucid style, its use of symbolism and the manner in which it merges the life of its main protagonist, Mir Nihal with that of the family. Much attention has also been parcel to this feeling that it had universal appeal because it focuses on the rhythms life birth marriage deaths, which are intrinsic to every culture.
  Use of metaphor
Ethos of Indian Muslims
Use of couplet
False sense of diffidence
Realism
Realistic portrayal of culture and traditions    

Major Themes in "Twilight in Delhi" by Ahmed Ali

The Struggle over Memory
Modernity VS The Old India
Sense of diffidence
Passing away of Muslim civilization in India  
culture and society
colonialism
sex

Symbolism

Ahmed Ali’s Twilight in Dehli of been regarded as masterpiece. His writing is immensely visual. He wants to recreate a world which is real, vivid and close to the actual traditional ways of old Delhi. Throughout the whole novel symbolical element ore used vehemently

 
 Asgher longing for love.
Mir Nihal’s Paralysis
Begum Nihal’s Blindness
Pigeons caught by cat  
Asghar's attraction towards english fashion 

Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice 

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Pride and Prejudice (disambiguation).

Pride and Prejudice
Author(s)	Jane Austen
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel of manners, Satire
Publisher	T. Egerton, Whitehall
Publication date	28 January 1813
Media type	Print (Hardback, 3 volumes)
OCLC Number	38659585
Preceded by	Sense and Sensibility
Followed by	Mansfield Park

Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.
Though the story is set at the turn of the 19th century, it retains a fascination for modern readers, continuing near the top of lists of "most loved books" such as The Big Read. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature and receives considerable attention from literary scholars. Modern interest in the book has resulted in a number of dramatic adaptations and an abundance of novels and stories imitating Austen's memorable characters or themes. To date, the book has sold some 20 million copies worldwide.
As Anna Quindlen wrote,

"Pride and Prejudice is also about that thing that all great novels consider, the search for self. And it is the first great novel to teach us that that search is as surely undertaken in the drawing room making small talk as in the pursuit of a great white whale or the public punishment of adultery."

• 2 Main characters
  • 2.1 Elizabeth Bennet
  • 2.2 Mr Darcy
  • 2.3 Mr Bennet
  • 2.4 Mrs Bennet
  • 2.5 Jane Bennet
  • 2.6 Mary Bennet
  •  2.14 Aunt and Uncle Gardiner
  • 2.7 Catherine Bennet
  • 2.8 Lydia Bennet
  • 2.9 Charles Bingley
  • 2.10 Caroline Bingley
  • 2.11 George Wickham
  • 2.12 William Collins
  • 2.13 Lady Catherine de Bourgh
  • 2.15 Georgiana Darcy
  • 2.16 Charlotte Lucas
  • 2.17 Interrelationships
  • 2.18 Family trees
  •  
• 3 Major themes
  • 3.1 Marriage
  • 3.2 Money
  • 3.3 Class
  • 3.4 Self Knowledge

  • Title

    The title "Pride and Prejudice" is very likely taken from a passage in Fanny Burney's popular 1782 novel Cecilia, a novel Jane Austen is known to have admired:
    

    "The whole of this unfortunate business," said Dr. Lyster, "has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE. ... Yet this, however, remember: if to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to PRIDE and PREJUDICE you will also owe their termination..." [capitalization as in the original].

    The terms are also used repeatedly in Robert Bage's influential 1796 Hermsprong.
    An earlier occurrence still is to be found in Chapter II of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1776. In the discussion of slavery the following sentence appears: "Without destroying the distinction of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honours was presented, even to those whom PRIDE AND PREJUDICE almost disdained to number among the human species".
     

    Modern popularity

  • In 2003 the BBC conducted the largest ever poll for the "UK's Best-Loved Book" in which Pride and Prejudice came second, behind The Lord of the Rings.
  • In a 2008 survey of more than 15,000 Australian readers, Pride and Prejudice came first in a list of the 101 best books ever written.

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart
In A Nutshell

Originally written in English and published in 1958, Things Fall Apart was one of the first novels by an African author to garner worldwide acclaim. Though mostly fictional, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe claims that the book documents Africa’s spiritual history – the civilized and rich life the Igbo lived before the arrival of Europeans and the ruinous social and cultural consequences that the arrival of European missionaries brought. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart as a sharp criticism of imperialism, or the European colonization of countries outside of the European continent (especially Africa and the Americas). The novel also critiques Joseph Conrad’s famous novel, Heart of Darkness, which documented the African natives from an imperialist’s (or white colonizer’s) point of view. Achebe followed Things Fall Apart with two other novels, No Longer At Ease and Arrow of God, both of which also depict the African experience with Europeans.

Why Should I Care?

So, unless you’re from Nigeria, you might not be able to relate to the Igbo culture. We bet your dad hasn’t murdered your adoptive brother, and we’re guessing that your country hasn’t just been colonized and your culture shattered. But if you think you can’t relate to this book, think again. Do you mean to tell us that you’ve never been afraid of becoming like one of your parents? Even an eensy bit scared?

One of the most fascinating parts of Things Fall Apart comes from watching Okonkwo's ongoing battle against being like his father. Okonkwo doesn’t respect anything about his father, which is a bit extreme. Most people, though, do see qualities in their parents that scare them. You know, like the kid with the alcoholic dad who decides never to touch a drink, or the one that has a hideously penny-pinching mom who grows up vowing to never shop at a discount store or use coupons while grocery shopping.

It’s common for people to fear being like their parents, and overcompensate by behaving in the completely opposite way. Okonkwo, however, is an example of what happens to a person who concerns himself more with avoiding his father's traits than with living his own, independent life.

Things Fall Apart Themes

Gender
Respect and Reputation
Sin
Fear
Customs and traditions
Fate and free will

Things Fall Apart Characters

Okonkow
Unoka
obierika
knwoye
Ekwifi
Ezinma
Ikemefuna

THE HEART OF DARKNESS (Josaph Conrad)

Historical Context

• Joseph Conrad captained a steamboat up the Congo in 1890. He wrote Heart of Darkness in 1899. At the time Conrad went up the Congo, the region he travelled in was The Congo Free State, a million square miles in central Africa that was the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. It was established in 1884 and remained his personal kingdom until 1908.
• Two figures were especially important in the exploration and annexation of Africa by the European powers: David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley.
• Livingstone was a famous missionary/explorer. He put lots of Africa on the map in the 1840's-70's. He disappeared for many years in the heart of Africa in 1865. A journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, in 1871, went on a mission to find him. When he found him he uttered the famous greeting: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."
• Stanley became a famous explorer. He crossed Africa in 1877, east to west, 7000 miles. Wrote lots of books about Africa.
• In 1878, at the height of Stanley's fame, King Leopold II hired Stanley to create his African kingdom. For five years, Stanley was in the Congo making "treaties with the natives,"--that is, creating a slave-state of forced labor based on the gun and the whip.
• In 1884, the U.S. was the first country to recognize Leopold's claim to the million miles, which was called the International Association of the Congo.
• In 1884-5, the European powers held a conference to divide up Africa--the so called "Scramble for Africa." The Conference ended by recognizing Leopold's claim. He changed the name to "The Congo Free State" (nice irony).
• The Europeans justified their exploitation of Africa with the rhetoric of bringing European Civilization to the Dark Continent--the Light of Christianity and the value of work, with a Capital W. The dominant views were nicely summed up and expressed in Rudyard Kipling's The White Man's Burden which was written the same year as Heart of Darkness. Europeans and Americans had a sacred duty to bring enlightnment and progress, civilization and economic development to the Land of Darkness.
• In this historical moment, Conrad writes Heart of Darkness. As you read the novel, you'll see how Conrad appropriates for his own ends a lot of the language and understanding of Africa which was dominant in Europe at the time. Notice Marlow's aunts view of Marlow's misssion in the Congo and especially Kurtz's words, which are indirectly quoted at various moments in the story.

The Art of Narration in Heart of Darkness

• The Method of telling the story: the story within a story.
  • Conrad uses a frame-story, which is a narrative device that enhances the complexity of the story-telling. By using a frame-story one can have stories within stories commenting on each other in a variety of ways. For example, Rashomon. The central story is the story that goes on between the Priest, the Woodcutter and the Commoner at Rashomon gate. The stories told by the bandit, the wife, the husband and the woodcutter about what happened in the woods all function to illuminate the frame-story--the 3-way debate at Rashomon.
  • HD is a first-person narration within a first-person narration. The narrator of the frame-story is a nameless character who tells about Marlow's telling of the main story. The central narrator is Marlow. In the standard first person narration the readers are the direct audience. For example , in A Clockwork Orange, Alex addresses the readers: "Oh, my brothers." In HD, the audience for Marlow's tale is the guys on the boat on the Thames. Marlow is speaking to the characters in the story, not directly to the audience outside the story.
  • What are the advantages of this narrative technique? It creates an oral storyteller--A voice. It simulates the qualities of oral story-telling. Marlow, the oral story-teller, moves easily back and forward in time, creates suspense by mentioning things that have already happened, but which he's not telling everything about them just yet. He can make abrupt statements like: "This too has been one of the dark places of the earth.." What? He drops hints, stops the flow of action for digressions into reflection and commentary. At the moment of attack, when the steerman is dying at his feet, Marlow stops the story for a long reflection on Kurtz. Just as the boat is about to reach Kurtz, Marlow stops the narrative to attack his audience for their inability to understand the meaning of his story.
  • So this narrative technique of the oral story-teller is a very flexible technique. Lesiurely, loose, digressive, meandering, which allows for Marlow's critical commentary and reflection on what he encounters, and for the creation of anticipation and suspense as we slowly journey upriver to meet, at last, the "remarkable" Mr. Kurtz.
• Story Structure--The Journey.
  • The journey is a classic type of story. Take a trip, go through a series of adventures on the road. The Odyssey, Don Quixote, On the Road.
  • This is an archypical narrative form for exploring the movement from innocence to experience, ignorance to knowledge. Basic initiation story form in which characters are initiated into a complex reality that they didn't understand before making the journey.
  • The journey is a nice loose structure in which one can add or subtract incidents. The events can have a certain completness in and of themselves. Witness the events in Apocalypse Now.
• Symbols.
  • HD is a difficult story to read partly because of the digressive oral style, but mostly because the story is dense with symbolic meaning. Characters, events, details of description reverberate with symbolic suggestiveness. A Clockwork Orange is much easier reading, even with the Nadsat of Alex , for two reasons. The writing style is simple and direct and there are only a few symbols use in the story, such as the title.
  • What is a symbol? A symbol is a specific detail or details which has a specific meaning in the context, but suggests much more. Symbols are condensed, short-hand means of communicating rich meaning by suggestion instead of direct statement. For example, the title, Heart of Darkness, drips with multi-meanings. Or the French gunboat firing into the jungle. The Central Station; the Innner Station. The blasting going on at the Central Station. "The grove of death." The heads. Kurtz's painting and Report. Or the characters as symbols of moral types--ways of facing the Heart of Darkness.
  • Part of the pleasure of reading such a symbolically dense text is the pleasure of sleuthing, puzzling out the meaning of the symbols.
• Characters.
  • The Major Characters.
    • Marlow. Marlow is the central character who is changed by his journey into the heart of darkness and his encounter with Mr. Kurtz. How does he change? Notice that he does not tell a neutral story about his experiences. He casts a critical ironic eye upon his encounters. He makes moral judgments by the way he describes what he sees and hears. Pay attention to the comments he makes about his experience.
    • Kurtz. A voice. A remarkable man--an idealist, a painter and poet and orator. A writer of the "Report on the Suppression of Savage Customs." "All of Europe went into the making of Kurtz." Yet Mr. Kurtz was "hollow at the core." "The Horror! The Horror! What happened to Mr. Kurtz in the heart of darkness?
    • The Accountant. Keeps immaculate accounting records, while living a few hundred feet from "the grove of death."
    • The Russian Harlequin. A young adventurer in Africa, who was "thoughtlessly alive." A great admirer of Kurtz: "He enlarged my mind." What is his function in the novel?
  • Relationship among characters: What do they have in common?
    • Citizen in a toga; Fresleven; Kurtz; Marlow
    • Chief Accountant; Russian
    • Station Manager; Assistant Manager-bricklayer; El Dorado Exploring Expedition; the Pilgrims.
    • Natives on shore; Cannibals on the boat.
    • Marlow's Aunt; Warrior Woman; the Intended.
• Definitions: "Those who have the power to define are the Masters." (The links are to the paragraphs in Heart of Darkness in which the definitions appear.)
  .
  • Workers.[27]
  • Enemies.[30]
  • Criminals.[36]
  • Rebels.[117]

Key scenes for analysis and discussion.

[The links are to the paragraphs in HD.]

• Fresleven and the hens. [20]
• Marlow's discussion with his Aunt. [27]
• The French Gunboat.[30]
• At the Company Station. Building a railway; the Grove of Death; The Accountant. [35]
• At the Central Station. The manager; Kurtz's painting; Kurtz's words.[52]
• The Cannibals.[88]
• Kurtz's "Report on the Suppression of Savage Customs."[103]
• The Russian.[107]
• The Heads. "Hollow at the core."[115]
• Encounter with Kurtz.[120]
• "The Horror! The Horror!"[154]