Socially conscious literary critics have made much of Balzac’s realism: his gritty depictions of actual life, in which the sentiments of a social moralist crop up here and there amidst the careful accounts-keeping of a bourgeois citizen (who would rather have been an aristocrat); his troubled portrayal of the decline of the aristocracy and the…
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Le Pere Goriot: Themes
The Influence of Environment on Character Honore de Balzac’s portrayal of various social climbing characters in Le Pere Goriot examines how one’s environment shapes one’s character. As A. J. Krailsheimer puts it in the preface to his 1991 translation of the novel, ‘‘What interests Balzac is cause and effect, environment more than heredity, and behavioral…
Le Pere Goriot: Chapter Summaries
Honore de Balzac’s classic novel Le Pere Goriot has been divided in several different ways by its various translators in the nearly two centuries since its original publication in French; the sections here follow the helpful divisions in the Franklin Library’s 1980 edition of an anonymous 1897 translation generally attributed to Jane Minot Sedgwick. Part…
Ordinary People by Judith Guest: Characters
Karen Aldrich Karen is Conrad’s friend from the psychiatric hospital. Conrad tries to reconnect with her after they leave the hospital, but they are no longer close. When Conrad learns she has committed suicide his discovery precipitates a crisis. Exploring his emotions about her death helps Conrad to finally heal the pain from his brother’s…
Ordinary People: Summary
The novel, Ordinary People by Judith Guest, takes place in Lake Forest, Illinois, during the 1970s. The story centers on the Jarrett family—Calvin, Beth, and their son Conrad. They are mourning the older Jarrett son, Buck, who was killed in a boating accident. Conrad felt so guilty about Buck’s death that he attempted suicide by…
No Longer At Ease: Analysis
With great subtlety and economy, No Longer at Ease creates an intricate psychological portrait of a modern African nowhere man. Outwardly, Obi Okonkwo appears a model of success and uplift, a local boy from the bush who rises into the elite to lead a glamorous life in the city with an enviable post in the…
No Longer At Ease: Setting
In the first half of the twentieth century, the empires of Europe controlled most of the African continent. Chinua Achebe depicts the roots of British rule over the Ibo people of the Niger Delta in Things Fall Apart. As colonial administrators were setting up the machinery of government, European industrialists exploited the country’s natural resources,…
No longer At Ease: Themes
Colonialism The social and psychological effects of European colonialism in African life is a central theme in all of Chinua Achebe’s writing. No Longer at Ease is set toward the end of the colonial period; two generations have passed since the white man’s initial disruption of Ibo society, the period depicted in Things Fall Apart….
No Longer At Ease: Characters
Bisi In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Bisi is a girlfriend of Obi’s friend Christopher. She and Christopher go out one Saturday night with Obi and Clara; Bisi wants to go to the movies, but agrees to go out dancing instead. They stay out until two in the morning, and Bisi is reluctant to leave; she says…
Chapter Summaries of No Longer At Ease
Chapter 1 Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease reveals its ending at the beginning: Obi Okonkwo is on trial for accepting a bribe. The trial is the talk of Lagos and the courtroom is crowded. Obi has maintained a demeanor of indifference throughout, but at the judge’s summation tears come to Obi’s eyes. The scene…