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Who Was James Joyce? James Joyce / James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941), was an Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Joyce came from a big family and was the eldest of ten children. His father was a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), but failed to support his family. His habit of drinking and spending money carelessly soon brought the family into financial crises. From an early age, Joyce loved to write and had a passion for literature. He taught himself Norwegian so he could read Henrik Ibsen's plays in the language they had been written and spent his free time devouring Dante, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Because of his intelligence, Joyce's family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and ...

Wasteland by T.S Eliot One of the main harbingers of the Modernist movement in literature, T.S Eliot’s canonical work The Wasteland is a public outcry against the degenerating and decaying modern life devoid of any real values. The lack of hope, the looming uncertainty of the future, and the inevitability of death occupy the base of the various allusions and references made in the poem. The very title of this poem is rich in references. The title evokes associations with vegetation myths which assert that the sterility of the land is due to the impotence of its ruler. And both can be cured by the questing knight asking the right question at a ritual. Eliot has borrowed much from Jessie L Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance (1920) which speaks about the Grail Legend. The Golden Bough by James Frazor is another work from which Eliot has borrowed. According to Weston, the fisher king was the ruler of the land that was cursed with an evil spell that rendered the king impotent. A questing ...

I Title of the book : Grapes of Wrath Name of the Author : John Steinbeck The style of narrative :  Third person omniscient Genre : Fiction, History - great depression  My Rating : 4.5/5                                                      Synopsis : Tom Joad gets out of jail on parole. He returns back home to find his home town in a miserable condition. The rich farmers are after their land and the family is threatened to move out fast. His return brings new hope to his family and all of them set out to the north, towards California with the prospect of earning a living and starting a new life. The family hits the highway in their poorly patched truck with all their essentials packed. The Highway plays a major part in the setting of the novel where numerous fortunate and unfortunate events takes place for the Joad Family. Ma Joad plays a ...

Lockwood - unreliable narrator in Wuthering Height Lockwood functions in the novel as the intermediary through whom the eyewitness account of the events and the circumstances given by Nelly are communicated to the readers. The author’s intention in introducing Lockwood was to give us the point of view of a detached and impartial and objective observer. Lockwood can be considered an unreliable narrator due to his characterisation as a complete outsider to the state of affairs at the Height and the Grange. He mistakes Miss Catherine to be the widow of Heathcliff’s son and Hareton to be Heathcliff’s servant. When Nelly later clarifies this, the text actually confuses the readers, taking quite a bit of time to adjust and digest these character reversals and to get back on track with the novel smoothly. By doing so he brings confusion to the reader's minds. He also introduces the main characters in the novel by the brief impression he gets on his first two visits to Wuthering Heights....

The Victorian period is  hallmarked by Queen Victoria's rule from June 1837 to January 1901.  The period saw the British Empire bloom to become the major players in international trade. The Victorian Era was a time of contrasts—poverty as well as prosperity, degrading manual labor as well as technological progress, and depravity as well as virtue. In many ways it was paradoxically “the best times” and “the worst of times” as quoted from Charles Dickens novel Tale of Two Cities. Conflicts of Faith and Doubt The foundation of evolutionary theory, On the Origin of Species , was published by Charles Darwin in 1859. He stirred up a huge cloud of doubt into the Victorian society through this seminal piece of work. The religious society began to question their faith and went in search of facts.  Darwinism, coupled with the new science discoveries being made, posed serious problems for the church and society, causing people to challenge their religious beliefs and have many doub...