Summaries of 25 Classics: An Anthology

By Raja Sharma

This book includes the introduction and summary of 25 all time best classics. Most of these books are prescribed in the academic institutions in various parts of the world, so the present book is sure to prove a great help to the students and teachers of English Literature.

Chapter 1: 1984
Chapter 2: A&P
Chapter 3: A Border Passage
Chapter 4: A Clergyman's Daughter
Chapter 5: A Death in the Family
Chapter 6: A Doll's House
Chapter 7: Across Five Aprils
Chapter 8: All My Sons
Chapter 9: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Chapter 10: All the King's Men
Chapter 11: All the Pretty Horses
Chapter 12: The American Dream
Chapter 13: A Passage to India
Chapter 14: A Room with a View
Chapter 15: A Streetcar Named Desire
Chapter 16: An Enemy of the People
Chapter 17: Herzog
Chapter 18: Babylon Revisited
Chapter 19: Black Boy
Chapter 20: Bless Me, Ultima
Chapter 21: Bread Givers
Chapter 22: Breath, Eyes, Memory
Chapter 23: Burmese Days
Chapter 24: Coming Up for Air
Chapter 25: Darkness at Noon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Apr 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301518661

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Summaries of 25 Classics: An Anthology

Raja Sharma

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Summaries of 25 Classics: An Anthology

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2013 Raja Sharma

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Chapter 1: 1984

Introduction

The novel 1984 warns the mankind against the dangers of a totalitarian society, and it is considered to be the best book written on the subject. George Orwell’s craftsmanship is quite obvious in every part of the story.

George Orwell was a witness to the atrocities being committed by the authoritarian regimes in Spain, Germany, and the Soviet Union. All that had happened in an age of advanced technology. The novel masterly illustrates the peril in a very harsh manner.

1984 is said to be one of the most famous novels of dystopian genre. In a dystopian novel, the author presents the world which is just opposite to the society that is present in a utopian novel. In a dystopian novel, the worst human society imaginable is presented. It happens to be directed towards instructing the readers that the efforts should be made to save this human society from disintegration.

Before the television invaded every home, when the nuclear age had just begun, Orwell visualized, in 1949, that every individual would be monitored through television screen. At that time it seemed to be terrifying possibility. He thought about a society after the atomic war. He thought that such terrifying society would possibly exist in 1984.

As we all know that the visualized world by George Orwell in his novel did not become a reality, but certain aspects became obvious in the society of the time mentioned in the novel. Rather than being overwhelmed by totalitarianism, democracy ultimately won out in the Cold War, as seen in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Through his book George Orwell sends a clear message to the mankind how excessively powerful an authoritarian regime can be and how language and history can be manipulated to suppress the people with a dictatorial hand.

Summary

The story begins with Winston Smith’s introduction. He is a nominal member of the Ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. The leader of the party is a powerful figure known as Big Brother. Winston’s activities are monitored everywhere. The Party keeps an eye on him through telescreens even in his house. Everything that happens in the nation of Oceania is under the control of the Party. Even the history and language of the people of the city is controlled by the Party.

The Party has invented a new language called Newspeak, and they are forcing to implement this language on the people. The aim is to eliminate all those words which are related to political rebellion. The Party believes that they can control the minds of the people when they begin to use this new language. There will be no chance of rebellion against the Party. The new rule declares that even thinking about rebellion is illegal. It is named as thoughtcrime. The thoughtcrime is considered to be the worst of all crimes.

In the opening of the novel it is clearly felt that Winston is quite frustrated by the strict control of the party; he feels strongly oppressed. The Party prohibits free thought, sex, and every expression of individuality. Winston is not ready to accept all this. He goes to a secret place and illegally buys a diary. He wants to record his criminal thoughts in that diary.

There is another powerful Party member named O’Brien. Winston thinks that he is also a member of the secret and mysterious group called Brotherhood. This group wants to overthrow the Party. Winston has become attached to O’Brien.

Winston has his job in the Ministry of Truth. His work is to alter the historical records to make them suitable according to the need of the Party. One day, he notices a beautiful, dark haired girl, his colleague. Winston is worried that she will report on him and turn him in for his thoughtcrime. Winston does not like that the Party should control the history. He is deeply worried by the Party’s claims: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most dangerous man alive. Winston is not ready to believe all this.

In the evenings, Winston wanders through the poorest localities in London, where manual labourers or proles live miserable lives. These people are not under the monitoring of the Party.

The dark haired girl’s name is Julia. One day, she sends Winston an I love you note. Winston and Julia begin to see each other, always careful in avoiding the monitored areas by the Party. Finally, they decide to rent a room in the poorest district, above the secondhand store whence Winston had bought the diary. The love affair continues for quite some time. Julia is highly pragmatic and optimistic, but Winston is afraid that sooner or later they will be caught and he will be punished. Winston and Julio develop a very strong relationship. Winston begins to hate the Party more intensely.

Finally, a message informs him that O’Brien wants to meet him.

O’Brien lives in a very luxurious apartment. Winston and Julia go there to meet him. O’Brien is the member of the powerful Inner Party whereas Winston is the member of the Outer Party. O’Brien lives a very luxurious life, for he is the member of the Inner Party but Winston can’t even think of such life.

O’Brien asserts that he hates the Party too, and declares that he works against the Party, being a member of the Brotherhood. Winston and Julia are indoctrinated into the Brotherhood by O’Brien. He gives Winston a copy of the book written by Emmanuel Goldstein. It is the manifesto of the Brotherhood.

When they come back to their rented room above the store, Winston reads that book to Julia. It is an amalgam of several forms of the class based 20th century social theory.

Suddenly, soldiers force their entry into the room and arrest him. It transpires that Mr. Charrington, the owner of the store, was a member of the Thought Police.

Winston is separated from Julia and he is taken to a place called the Ministry of Love. It also transpires that O’Brien has also betrayed Winston. O’ Brien is actually a spy and he had pretended to be a member of the Brotherhood to trap Winston.

Winston is imprisoned and he is tortured and brainwashed. O’Brien tries his best to change Winston’s mind but Winston continues to resist. Finally, Winston is sent to the dreaded Room 101, which is the final destination for the person who goes against the Party. In this dreaded room, O’Brien tells Winston that he will be forced to confront his worst fear. Throughout the novel, Winston has had recurring nightmares about rats; O’Brien now straps a cage full of rats onto Winston’s head and prepares to allow the rats to eat his face. Winston snaps, pleading with O’Brien to do it to Julia, not to him.

All along O’Brien has wanted that Winston should forget about Julia and he has finally succeeded. When Winston’s spirit is completely broken, he is released to the outside world.

Having come out of the prison, Winston meets Julia but there is no feeling for her. He is not interested in her. Winston has finally accepted the Party without even a shade of doubt in his mind and he has also learned to love Big Brother.

(The story distinctly shows that the powerful mechanism of an authoritarian regime can easily force the people of the society to break and follow their commands. It reveals that the powerful and ugly authority is definitely going to make this world worse and almost unlivable for the common people who find their happiness in little things.)

Chapter 2: A&P

Introduction

A&P by John Updike was first published in 1961 and then it reappeared in the 1962 collection Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories. A&P is a perfect example of a New Yorker story. It is short, realistic, characters based story. The story is written in the first person narrative and the voice of the narrator is quite distinct. J. D. Salinger was the master of such type of fiction and Updike was highly inspired by him and he publicly acknowledged J. D. Salinger as his role model. Updike often praised J. D. Salinger for his ability to capture life in all its messy shapelessness.

Summary

A&P is a grocery store in a small New England town. One morning, three teenage girls, wearing only their bathing suits enter this A&P grocery store. There is a person named Sammy who works at the store. He is a young man; he is working the checkout line. Sammy watches the three teenage girls very closely. Sammy is highly impressed by their looks and he likes their graceful manner of walking and moving around. Sammy begins to guess about their personalities and the motive behind coming to the store. He is more attracted to the way they are dressed.

Sammy finds one girl the most attractive and Sammy speculates that she is the leader of the group. Sammy names that girl Queenie. Sammy thinks that she has a natural grace and elegance of manners. She is full of confidence. She is a very beautiful girl.

The three teenage girls begin to move along the aisles of the store. A kind of commotion and excitement is created among the onlookers in the store. Since the store is in the centre of the town, it is quite surprising to see three teenage girls in their swimming costumes. The A&P is nowhere near the beach. Sammy’s colleague Stokesie is also present there and he is ogling the girls too. Stokesie jokes around with Sammy. Though Sammy jokes with Stokesie, he feels that there is a strong contrast between the two because Sammy is unmarried and Stokesie is already married. Though both of them are working in the store, Sammy feels that Stokesie is resigned to a life of working at the A&P but for himself he feels that he is definitely not made for that job. He feels that the work there is below his caliber and status.

Other workers begin to admire the girls too but Sammy feels pity for them because they have already compromised their lives. He feels that he is the only person who is fit to attend to the girls and to talk with them.

Sammy is really fortunate because the three teenage girls begin to move towards him. His feeling of superiority and joy is quickly supplanted by pure excitement as the girls choose Sammy’s checkout line to make their purchase. He begins to compose himself, with a definite sense of joy in his heart.

Lengel is the manager of A&P. He begins to advance towards Sammy’s checkout lane. Lengel is angry and he confronts the three girls in a very angry manner. He begins to chastise the girls for entering the store in bathing suits, citing store policy. The girls are embarrassed, and Queenie protests that her mother wanted her to come in and buy some herring snacks. In this statement, Sammy gleans insight into Queenie’s life. He imagines her parents at a party, everyone dressed nicely and sipping drinks the color of water. He thinks about his own parents’ parties, where people drink lemonade