Augie returns to Chicago, stopping to see his brother Georgie along the way. He is impressed that Georgie has learned the craft of shoemaking. He then drops in on Mama, finding her in a nicer apartment at her institution. She tells him to go see Simon, and Augie is thrilled to hear that Simon often…
Tag: Novels
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20
Augie and Thea settle in the town of Acatla, in a house owned by her family. Augie begins to wonder just why he is in Mexico. Thea has said earning money was the goal, but training an eagle to catch lizards seems to be a strange way of doing it. He also finds himself feeling…
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 12, 13, 14 & 15
Simon and Charlotte marry, and Simon hatches a plan for Augie to marry Lucy Magnus, Charlotte’s cousin. The Magnuses, however, are not enthusiastic about Augie, largely because of his seeming lack of ambition and direction. He continues to work hard as Simon’s assistant at the coal yard, and business for the ruthless Simon rapidly improves….
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 8, 9, 10 & 11
‘‘From here a new course was set,’’ declares Augie. He attends a city college at night and finds work at a clothing store during the day. Simon works in the same store, and the family is doing well enough to hire a mulatto (a person of both black and white ancestry), Molly Simms, to help…
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 5, 6 & 7
In the fall of 1929, just before the stock market crash, Augie goes to work for a local businessman named William Einhorn. Augie calls Einhorn ‘‘the first superior man I knew’’ and becomes the ‘‘arms and legs’’ of his severely handicapped mentor. The Einhorn fortune was made by Einhorn’s father, the Commissioner. Augie is essentially…
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 1, 2, 3 & 4
The first four chapters of The Adventures of Augie March introduce us to Augie and his family and the immigrant, Jewish world of his section of Chicago. Augie, the narrator and main character, declares in the opening sentence that ‘‘I am an American, Chicago born . . . and go at things as I have…
The Adventures of Augie March: A Brief Introduction
Published in 1953, Saul Bellow’s sweeping, comedic novel The Adventures of Augie March, was heralded by many reviewers as an instant classic, and it established its author as a major voice in American fiction. It is a bold, ambitious novel that claims that the story of a young, poor, fatherless, Jewish man belongs at the…
Totalitarianism & Dehumanization in 1984
The most prominent message of 1984 is that totalitarianism destroys all that is civil and noble in human beings. In the novel, Orwell writes “Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four. Once that is granted, all else follows.” The converse of this quote is that by disallowing fundamental freedoms that are…
Waiting for the Barbarians: Summary and Analysis
The novel in short is about the authoritative military interventions of the Third Bureau (a term resonating with the German Third Reich) in the imaginary frontier town. The town is run by a Magistrate (apparently a civil servant appointed by the imperial elite). But the Magistrate is humane and compassionate toward the people in his…
Pride and Prejudice: Critical Analysis
A critical appreciation and a literary analysis involving plot, point of view, character, setting, time and style in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is one of the most popular novels in English literature. It continues to remain as popular today as it was upon its release in the United…