Darly Darly is Pace’s sixty-eight-year-old ranch hand. Like Hattie, he comes from the East Coast. Darly inadvertently causes Hattie to break her arm, but he never apologizes for his mistake. Throughout the story, he and Hattie are seen as behaving antagonistically toward each other, each annoyed by the others’ tacit accusations of being a drunk….
Tag: Saul Bellow
Leaving the Yellow House – Summary
As the story opens, seventy-two-year-old Hattie has lived in the old yellow house in the practically deserted community of Sego Desert Lake, Utah, for years. Born and bred on the East Coast, Hattie came out West after a failed marriage to a Philadelphia blueblood. She used to have a lover named Wicks. He was a…
The Adventures of Augie March: Quick Review
Augie March lives quite a life [in The Adventures of Augie March]. Up from the depths of poverty to the heights of success, back down, back up, and all in most peculiar fashion. Jobs, journeys, jolts—and women, women, women. Crime and college, labor unions and athletic clubs, Chicago and Mexico, slums and society, thievery and…
Critical Analysis of The Adventures of Augie March
Why do so many literary critics prize The Adventures of Augie March so highly? It is a novel in which a young man comes of age in Chicago yet cannot settle down to one career or commit to one relationship. It is a novel in which, after several hundred pages, the hero, Augie March, suddenly…
Historical Context of The Adventures of Augie March
The Great Depression Much of the action of the novel takes place during the Great Depression, widely considered the most serious economic downturn in United States history. The Great Depression began in the autumn of 1929, when the largely unregulated stock market plunged and American industry came almost to a standstill. By the early 1930s,…
Literary Style & Symbolism in The Adventures of Augie March
The Coming-of-Age Novel The Coming-of-Age Novel, also known as a Bildungsroman, tells the story of a young person discovering their true self and the nature of the world as they come into adulthood. Other examples include Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The Adventures of Augie March…
Themes in The Adventures of Augie March
Self-Realization Perhaps the central theme of The Adventures of Augie March is its protagonist’s lifelong struggle to discover who he truly is and what his place in the world should be. This epic search for a path through life is what launches Augie into his ‘‘various jobs,’’ including smuggler, thief, teacher, and shoe salesman. But…
Major & Minor Characters in The Adventures of Augie March
Caligula Caligula is the young eagle trained to hunt lizards by Augie and Thea Fenchel. When he turns out to be ‘‘chicken,’’ Augie’s sympathy for him contributes to the tension between Augie and Thea. Uncle Charlie Charlotte Magnus’s uncle, Uncle Charlie helps set up Simon in the coal business. However, he takes less of a…
Plot Summary of The Adventures of Augie March: Chapters 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 & 26
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…
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…