The story begins with an unnamed narrator approaching a large and dreary-looking estate. As he approaches on horseback, he muses on the images before him, the darkness of the house, the oppressiveness of the clouds above, the eye-like windows, the ragged fissure in the side of the house, the fungi on the walls, and the…
Tag: Summary
Everyday Use by Alice Walker: Summary
Alice Walker’s modern classic “Everyday Use” tells the story of a mother and her two daughters’ conflicting ideas about their identities and ancestry. The mother narrates the story of the day one daughter, Dee, visits from college and clashes with the other daughter, Maggie, over the possession of some heirloom quilts. The story begins with…
A Christmas Memory: Summary
The narrator of this Truman Capote story tells the reader to “imagine a morning in late November” more than twenty years ago. The scene is a kitchen of a rambling house in a small rural town in the 1930s. An elderly woman stands at the kitchen window and proclaims that “it’s fruitcake weather!” This is…
The Bear by William Faulkner: Summary
“The Bear” immediately introduces readers to numerous time periods simultaneously.’ ‘There was a man and a dog too this time,” Faulkner writes, and readers are alerted that at least two time periods are being described in the narrative. The story follows sixteen-year-old Ike McCaslin as he embarks upon his sixth year of an annual hunting…
Raise The Red Lantern: Summary and Analysis
Summary: China in the 1920s. After her father’s death, 19-year-old Songlian is forced to marry Chen Zuoqian, the 50-year-old head of a powerful family. He already has three wives, each of them living in separate houses within his compound. The competition between the wives is fierce, as their master’s attention carries power, status and privilege….
The Red And The White (1967 Movie) – Summary and Analysis
Summary: It is the year 1919. The Reds and the Whites battle in the plains of Ukraine for the victory in the Russian Civil War, which came in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917. The movie’s action does not follow a main hero, or the causally connected events. Rather, viewers witness a series…
Black Cat, White Cat (1998 Movie): Summary and Analysis
Summary: The shifty Matko Destanov (Bajram Severdžan) is forced to marry off his teenage son Zare (Florijan Ajdini) to the midget sister of gangster Dadan Karambolo (Srd–an Todorovic´) in order to settle a debt, Dadan having diddled Matko on the heist of a trainload of smuggled oil. In love with waitress-cum-girl-next-door Ida (Branka Katic´), Zare…
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover: Synopsis and Analysis
Synopsis: Albert Spica has commandeered ‘La Hollandais’, an exclusive restaurant where the chef, Richard Borst, creates elaborate cuisine. Albert dines there regularly with his gang of unruly associates and his wife, Georgina; he extorts protection money from Borst. During their visits to the restaurant, Georgina, bored and disgusted by her life with Spica, begins a…
The Conformist (1970 Movie): Summary and Analysis
Summary: Set in 1930s Fascist Italy, Il Conformista tells the story of Marcello Clerici’s desire for conformity. Sexually repressed Marcello is tormented by the memory of a homosexual encounter during his childhood with his family’s chauffeur Lino, whom he believes he killed after Lino attempted to seduce him. Having suppressed his homosexual leanings, believing them…
A Man Escaped – Summary – Analysis
Summary: A man involved in the French Resistance to German occupation during the Second World War, Lieutenant Fontaine, is captured and imprisoned in Fort Montluc in Lyon.1 He carefully and meticulously plans his escape, seeing the achievement of each stage along his journey towards freedom as a personal victory. When Jost, a young teenage prisoner,…