Classic Literature Summaries

Hamlet

Prince of Denmark; -Protagonist
-upset that his uncle killed his father to become king and married ______'s mother
-pretends to be crazy to give him time to figure out how he can get revenge
-struggles with himself about his hesitation to get revenge
Shakespeare

The Tempest

Prospero and Mirand live on an island, where he practices magic. He creates a TITLE that brings the enemies who deposed him to the island; they are shipwrecked and separated. Miranda meets Ferdindand; they fall in love. Prospero uses his magical powers, and Ariel, to confound his guests and to defeat the Caliban's plots against him. All the rivalries are ended; Prospero frees Ariel as he had long promised.
Shakespeare

Iliad

The Trojan War forms the backdrop for one of Homer's great epic poems. The heroes of this book are warriors: the fierce Greek Achilles and the courageous and noble Hector of Troy.

Moby Dick

a monomaniacal captain tries and fails to kill a monstrous white whale; adventure story, quest tale, allegory; protagonist: Ishmael, Ahab; antogonist: Ahab, great white sperm whale
Melville

MacBeth

inspired by witch's prophecy, a man murders his way to the throne of Scotland, but his conscience plagues him and his fellow lords rise up against him; themes: unchecked ambition as a corrupting force, relationship between cruelty and masculinity, kingship v. tyranny
Shakespeare

Candide

(1759) novel written in response to the questioning of other writers against the pessimism present in his poem regarding the deadly earthquake of Lisbon in 1755. It was a satire attacking war, religious persecution, and what he considered unwarranted optimism.
Voltaire

Faust

Many consider to be the greatest work in German literature. Shows that complete happiness cannot be gained by things as is seen by the titular character being given everything but never truly being happy
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Othello

TITLE is a commander in the Venetian military and is sent to defend Cyprus against the Turks. Iago, passed over for promotion in favor of Cassio, plots to ruin his rival and TITLE. He tricks Cassio into drunkenness and arouses TITLE's jealousy, hinting that Cassio and Desdemona were lovers. As his jealousy consumes him, TITLE smothers the innocent Desdemona. TITLE then learns the truth and kills himself; Cassio brings Iago to justice.
Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

This story is framed by the wedding of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. It involves the bickering fairy monarches, Oberan and Titania, the mischievous spirit. Puck, and their enchanted meddling in the lives of two Athenian couples and a groupd of village simpletons, headed by a character named bottom.
Shakespeare

Pride and Prejudice

A popular novel in the English language, it is regarded as the first "chic-lit" novel. The novel encompasses strong female protagonists and their journeys to find love, in a world centered around marriage. Austen provides a spot on view of propriety in society as well as well-rounded, believable characters.
Jane Austen

The Merchant of Venice

Antonio borrows money from Shylock; the security is "a pound of flesh." Portia, wooed by many, asks each suitor to choose among caskets of gold, silver, and lead for permission to marry her; Bassanio correctly chooses the leaden one. When Antoni's load is due and Shylock tries to collect, Balthazar, a lawyer (Portia in disguise) argues that Shylock is entitled only to the flesh but no blood. Shylock relents and says he will take the money Bassanio offered for his friend. But by threatening a Venetian's life, Shylock must forfeit half his goods to Venice and half to Antonio, and must convert. Jessica marries Lorenzo.
Shakespeare

The Great Gatsby

A novel depicting the picturesque idea of the self made American man and entrepreneur who rose from obscurity.
Fitzgerald

The Scarlet Letter

A novel about Hester Prynne, a woman in seventeenth century New England who is convicted of adultery. At the beginning of the story, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her dress as a sign of her guilt. Hester will not reveal the identity of her partner in adultery. Her husband comes to realize who her lover is and takes revenge on him. Eventually, her dying lover publicly admits his part in the adultery.
Hawthorne

The Canterbury Tales

A group of travelers making a pilgrimage to Canterbury tell each other stories that they are by turns crude, hilarious, creepy, gruesome, and pious.
Chaucer

Pilgrim's Progress

A spiritual journey to a destination that has many challenging locations that represent temptations, trials, and tribulations along the path.
Bunyan

King Lear

TITLE plans to divide his kingdom among his daughters asking each to proclaim their love for him. Goneril and Regan flatter him; Cordelia refuses to do more than offer him the proper love and devotion. Outraged, TITLE denies Cordelia her portion and exiles her and her defender, the Earl of Kent. Edmund tricks Gloucester into exiling Edgar. Goneril and Regan strip away TITLE's remaining rights; he goes mad and is alone except for his Fool. Cordelia invades with a French army and finds the mad TITLE, but she is defeated by her sisters an Edmund. The victors fall out among themselves; Goneril kills Regan and commits suicide; Edmund's treachery is unmasked. TITLE enters, carrying Cordelia, whom Edmund had hanged. Then he dies as well.

The Odyssey

A Greek warrior undertakes an arduous journey back to his homeland and his loyal wife and son, experiencing many fantastical adventures along the way.
Homer

The Divine Comedy

long poem in 3 parts, goes to hell, purgatory, and heaven with virgil, filled with real ppl, meets beatrice, written in vernacular(italian)
Dante

Romeo and Juliet

In fair Verona, Italy, two families (the Capulets and the Montagues), carry our an ancient feud which appears to have no end in sight. Within that background, Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague secretly fall in love and marry. Nut their fates tear them apart and their love brinds about their tragic deaths.
Shakespeare

Billy Budd

A young seaman is forced to join a British naval crew, in which he bring delight to all those except for Claggart, the master at arms. After a dispute, he punches Claggart and kills him, and is hanged in the end. It means to tell us that justice will live as long as the human soul, and anyone as good as Budd or as bad as Claggart cannot survive.
Melville

Vanity Fair

In this work, Amelia Sedley marries Captain Dobbin after her original love dies at Waterloo, and Becky Sharp marries Rawdon Crawley. Name this satirical novel of manners
Thackeray

Paradise Lost

Angel leads an unsuccessful rebellion against God and suffers eternal damnation. He devises a plan to corrupt God's newly created beings, Adam and Eve, through deceit. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Grand, timeless, universal themes.
Milton

Little Women

four March sisters (Amy, Jo, Beth, Meg) in 19th century New England struggle with poverty, juggle their duties, and their desire to find love
Alcott

Twelfth Night

Viola and Sebastion are shipwrecked and separated in Illyria; Viola dresses as a man (Cesario) and meetsOlivia who falls in love with "him." Viola however, falls in love with the Duke who is enamored of Olivia. In the end Olivia is matched with Sebastion (who resembles his "twin" Cesario), and the Duke with Viola. TITLE refers to the Epiphany; at country house revels the social order was reversed: lords waited on their stewards, etc... This was Shakespeare's last true comedy.

A Doll's House

Nora's struggle with Krogstad, who threatens to tell her husband about her past crime, incites Nora's journey of self-discovery and provides much of the play's dramatic suspense. Nora's primary struggle, however, is against the selfish, stifling, and oppressive attitudes of her husband, Torvald, and of the society that he represents.
Ibsen

Aeneid

12 books about Aeneas, a Trojan Hero - Rome's Bible and literary masterpiece that was inspired by Homer
Virgil

Our Town

It is divided into three acts: "Daily Life" (Professor Willard and Editor Webb gossip on the everyday lives of town residents); "Love and Marriage" (Emily Webb and George Gibbs fall in love and marry); and "Death" (Emily dies while giving birth, and her spirit converses about the meaning of life with other dead people in the cemetery). A Stage Manager talks to the audience and serves as a narrator throughout the drama, which is performed on a bare stage.
Wilder

Much Ado About Nothing

Benedick and Beatrice battle and tease their way through most of the play, only to discover the true love they hold for each other. The vile Don John attempts to ruin the lives of the Duke, Don John, and his beloved. Hero by spreading slanderous lies and rumors. The village sheriff, Dogberry, complicates matters by being a general buffoon.
Shakespeare

War and Peace

delineates in graphic detail events surrounding the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Large section of the work, especially in the later chapters are philosophical discussions rather than narrative. The first part of his book was published under the title The Year 1805..
Tolstoy

Long Day's Journey Into Night

about the Tyrone family's struggle to confront their past - mother, Mary, is addicted to Morphine - father, Tyrone, is a miser, a fact which greatly agitates son Edmund, who has tuberculosis - Tyrone and Edmund both drink heavily throughout the play
O'Neill

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades, attached to an antifascist guerilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. Maria, Pablo, Russians in Madrid, Pilar.
Hemingway

Jane Eyre

Her time at Thornfield ends when she sees a crazy woman rip her bridal veil and finds out that the woman is Bertha Mason, Mr. Rochester's wife.
Charlotte Bronte

Anna Karenina

This novel is commonly thought to explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city
After having an affair with a handsome military man, a woman kills herself; russion, 1970s, psychological novel
Tolstoy

Heart of Darkness

A sailor tells the story of his journey through the Congo, where he met an enigmatic, powerful, insane imperialist who had abandoned the rules of English civilization., story reflects the physical and psychological shock Conrad himself experienced in 1890, when he worked briefly in the Belgian Congo.
Conrad

Les Miserables

It is based on the French Revolution. It was turned into a movie & musical. Its themes were forgiveness, reputation & love. A convict was shown forgiveness by a priest & he turned his life around. In the end, his bad re[ follows him.
Schönberg + Hugo

The Jungle

exposed the horrific working conditions and unsanitary manufacturing practices in the meat packing industry. It prompted a huge federal probe and the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906
Sinclair

1984

announced an insane world of dehumanization through terror in which the individual was systematically obliterated by an all-power elite; key phrases: Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, the Ministry of Peace...Truth...Love
Orwell

Crime and Punishment

in an attempt to prove a theory, a student (Raskolnikov) murders two women, after which he suffers greatly from guilt and worry; psychological drama, setting in the 1860s
Dostoevsky

Medea

fell in love with Jason and wants to use her power on him, sprinkles Jason with protective ointment that made him undefeatable, prays that hades will kill the attackers, kills Pilas with potion,exiled with her and Jasons kids to Corinth, poisoned Jasons new wife with a robe and killed her
Euripedes

A Tale of Two Cities

This novel follows the lives of several protagonists through the events preceding and surrounding the French Revolution. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife.
Dickens

A Raisin in the Sun

Play which portrays one African American family's struggle with reaching "equality in diversity" through their housing dilemma in Chicago's Clybourne Park. Walter, Ruth, Mama, Beneatha, Travis.
Hansberry

To Kill a Mockingbird

Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.
The plot and characters are loosely based on the Harper Lee's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality.
Harper Lee

Wuthering Heights

One of the narrators is scolded for interrupting a reading lesson with the song "Fairy Annie's Wedding," while the other narrator takes a trip to the chapel of Gimmerden Sough to hear a sermon by Jabez Branderham in a dream. After her tiny dog is hung on a doorpost, Isabella leaves for London, giving birth there to a son, Linton, by a man who eventually dies after starving himself for four days. That man had been brought to the title location from Liverpool, immediately becoming Hindley's enemy. Narrated by Mr. Lockwood and the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean, this is, FTP, what novel about the love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff?
Emily Bronte

A Farewell to Arms

A love story which draws heavily on the author's experiences as a young soldier in Italy. Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver during WWI. Falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley. The Battle of Caporetto. In Switzerland, their child is born dead, and Catherine dies due to hemorrhages.
Hemingway

A Streetcar Named Desire

Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski represent Williams's two visions of the South: declining "old romantic" vs. the harsh modern era. Blanche is a Southern belle who lost the family estate, and is forced to move into her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment. Stella's husband Stanley is rough around the edges, but sees through Blanche's artifice; he ruins Blanche's chance to marry his friend Mitch by revealing to Mitch that Blanche was a prostitute. Then, after Blanche confronts Stanley, he rapes her, driving her into insanity. The drama was developed into a movie, marking the breakthrough performance of method actor Marlon Brando.
Tennessee Williams

The Taming of the Shrew

Bianca, the younger sister, cannot marry until Katherina does, but she disdains all suitors. Petruchio gains their father's consent to marry Katherina. He wins her heart by feigning indifference, until she is the most affectionate and loving wife.
Shakespeare

The Rape of the Lock

A satire on a scandal about an impertinent haircut given by Lord Petre to Arabella Fermor (Arabella becomes Belinda in the poem). Contains versions of the epic invocation, the epic feast, the epic battle, the interference of the gods, and the epic simile--the epic feast is a tea serving, the epic battle is at cards, and the gods become dead demi-mondes
Pope

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Mariner returning from a voyage, tells a story to The Wedding Guest. Albatross (represents the Christian soul) in the story.
Coleridge

Catch 22

set on US air force base WWII. states that air mans request to be relieved from a flight duty can be granted only if he is judged to be insane. no way to avoid flying mission
Heller

The Waste Land

expressed the deep pessimism of the post WW1 years. His poem describes a world without faith, unable to restore spiritual and moral values. Did not use traditional rhyme and meter, had lines of varying length, and experimented with punctuation and appearance of poems.
Eliot

Lolita

The book is internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed and sexually involved with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze for whom his private nickname is Lolita.
Nabokov

The Catcher in the Rye

mental breakdown of a 17-year old boy named Holden Caufield - after getting kicked out of many expensive prep schools, he decides to hang around NY City for a few days - encounters people who he sees as phonies and eventually ends up in a CA mental institution - Holden has come to be a symbol for misunderstood youth
Salinger

On the Road

A man abandons New York and its intellectualism to seek enlightenment through unmeditated experience on the American road.
Kerouac

Beowulf

a great warrior, goes to Denmark on a successful mission to kill Grendel; he returns home to Geatland, where he becomes king and slays a dragon before dying; poem; alliterative verse, elegy, small scale heroic epic; author unknown; setting around 500 AD
Author Unknown

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Sir John Falstaff, the comical companion of Prince Hal, falls in love with both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, both married housewives in the town of Windsor. As the women of the play discover his intentions, they decide to make Falstaff the victim of a long series of embarrassing, humbling tricks. The fat knight learns important lessons about the true nature of love.
Shakespeare

The Turn of the Screw

-governess, flora, miles, mrs. grose. ghosts: mrs jessie and peter quint. trying to decide whether children or haunted or not, angels and demons, tries to take control, questioned if she kills miles
Henry James

Of Mice and Men

A parable about what it means to be human. The story of George and Lennie's ambition of owning their own ranch, and the obstacles that stand in the way of that ambition, reveal the nature of dreams, dignity, loneliness, and sacrifice. Ultimately, Lennie, the mentally handicapped giant who makes George's dream of owning his own ranch worthwhile, ironically becomes the greatest obstacle to achieving that dream. The story begins and ends with Georges endless love for his brother, but unfortunately when Lennie's mental impairment grows from the need to pet animals which leads to their death, to the death of an actual human George has no other choice but to end Lennie's life.
Steinbeck

The Sun Also Rises

Disillusioned by WWI, American expatriates in Europe lose themselves in alcohol, casual sex, and a frantic effort to enjoy themselves. Note: ______________ is to the "Lost Generation" of the '20s as On The Road is to the "Beat Generation" of the '
'50s.
Hemingway

Ivanhoe

A masked knight known as Desdichado competes in a tournament given by Prince John but the knight is the titular character in disguise.
Scott

David Copperfield

after surviving a poverty-stricken childhood, the death of his mother, a cruel stepfather, and an unfortunate first marriage, a boys finds success as a writer; themes: plight of the weak, importance of equality in marriage, dangers of wealth and class
Dickens

Great Expectations

Tells the story of Pip, an English orphan who rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also introduces one of the more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havasham.
Dickens

A Clockwork Orange

The main character Alex was an adolescent boy who did not care much about his future. He was part of a gang that hurt people physically. He then went under intense treatment and was forced to change. Even though after the treatment he was back to killing and beating people up, he then finally realized what he wanted to do in life was to grow up and have a family of his own.
Burgess

The Crucible

A book written about the Red Scare which depicted the Salem Witch Trials from Puritan times. The Salem Witch Trials were very similar to the events unfolding with the Red Scare so they were easily comparable.
Miller

Measure for Measure

Vincentio suddenly gives Angelo control of Vienna. ANgelo orders strict enforcement of the old law ordering death for lovers living together before marriage. Claudio is the first to be sentenced. When Isabella pleads with Angelo for her brother's life, Angelo finds himself lusting for her. He hypocritically offers to spare Claudio if Isabella will become his mistress. Vincentio disguised as a friar, reappears and sets everything right, and weds Isabella.
Shakespeare

Oliver Twist

A young pauper endures cruel treatment and persecution before finding benefactors and discovering his inheritance., Charles Dickens. Fagin, Bill Sikes, Artful Dodger, Noah Claypole, Mr. Brownlow.
Dickens

The Seagull

Konstantin Treplev commits suicide after finding out that Nina still loves Trigorin
Chekhov

Oresteia

three play series based on the family of Agamemnon, the mycenean king who commanded the greeks at troy
Euripedes

Eugene Onegin

A story about a man and a woman who love eachother, but never at the same time. It explores the relationship between art and reality.
Pushkin

Gulliver's Travels

A seventeenth-century English doctor chronicles his travels to four fantastical lands, whose inhabitants the author uses to satirize and critique English society.
Swift

A Modest Proposal

During time of rationalism, poverty was the dominant condition in Ireland. focuses his writing on the improvement of living standards for his fellow countrymen. Under his leadership, Ireland discovered its literary powers, and later spokespersons advanced the cause. Writers like he drew upon the current affairs for inspiration for their writing and used satire to ridicule their subjects.
Swift

Slaughterhouse Five

A veteran of World War II remembers being in Dresden during the firebombing and describes his postwar existence.
Vonnegut

Brave New World

About an outsider raised on the Reservation tries and fails to find love in the World State, a place where people are robbed of their humanity and sedated with the drug soma.
Huxley

The Grapes of Wrath

Set during the Great Depression, this novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry.
Steinbeck

Treasure Island

Jim Hawkins (narrator), a young boy who goes on a journey to discover pirate treasure. Long John Silver, former pirate, goes to take back treasure; shifting loyalties. Dr. Livesey, steady, practical leader of the expedition.
Stevenson

Fathers and Sons

two generations of people become estranged; Bazarov is a revolutionary medical doctor who turns to nihilism, spurns father who is just "enlightened" and not "revolutionary"; by Turgenev

Pygmalion

Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a commentary on women's independence.
Shaw

The Sorrows of Young Werther

novel about a sensitive young man whose hopeless love for a virtuous married woman drives him to suicide; showed them of individualism and developed the idea of a romantic hero, who defies the world and sacrifices himself for some great cause
Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Death of a Salesman

This play questions American values of success. Willy Loman is a failed salesman whose firm fires him after 34 years. Despite his own failures, he desperately wants his sons Biff and Happy to succeed. Told in a series of flashbacks, the story points to Biff's moment of hopelessness, when the former high school star catches his father Willy cheating on his mother, Linda. Eventually, Willy can no longer live with his perceived shortcomings, and commits suicide in an attempt to leave Biff with insurance money.
Miller

The Count of Monte Cristo

After escaping from unjust imprisonment, a man disguises himself as a count, avenges his downfall, and ries to exact diving retribution before acknowledging that only God has that power.
Murphy

My Antonia

the story of a bohemian girl whose family came from the Old Country two settle on the open prairies of Nebraska. While she lives on her farm and tills the soil, she is a child of the prairie, but when the Titular Character goes to the city, she faces heartbreak, disillusionment, and social ostracism. Only after her return to the land, which is her heritage, does she find peace and meaning in life.
Cather

As You Like It

A complicated tale of sibling rivalry; Oliver vs. Orlando; Duke Frederick vs. his brother. Orlando is in exile, as is the disguised Rosalind. In the end, all rivals are reconciled; Orlando and Rosalind marry.
Shakespeare

An American Tragedy

Clyde Griffiths, whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas city, to the town of Lycurgus, New York. Materialistic Hortense Briggs, farm girl Roberta Alden (who drowns), aristocratic Sondra Finchley. Clyde is found guilty of murdering Roberta, and sentenced to death. Abortion, societal ills.
Dreiser

Sense and Sensibility

Minor characters in this work include Charlotte Palmer, her in-laws the Middletons, and their gossipy mother Mrs. Jennings. In its first scene, John's wife Fanny argues for the allowance for her sisters-in-law to be reduced from three thousand pounds to five hundred, forcing them to move to Barton Cottage. A twist comes when those sisters-in-law learn of the illegitimate child borne to Eliza Williams by a man who attempted to seduce one of them and later weds the widowed Sophia Grey to resolve his debts, John Willoughby. Williams is the foster daughter of the thirty-five year-old Colonel Brandon, who, like Edward Ferrars, marries a Dashwood sister at the end of the novel.
Jane Austen

Rebecca

takes the form of a flashback. The heroine, who remains nameless, lives in Europe with her husband, Maxim de Winter, traveling from hotel to hotel, harboring memories of a beautiful home called Manderley, which, we learn, has been destroyed by fire. The story begins with her memories of how she and Maxim first met, in Monte Carlo, years before.
Maurier

Mourning Becomes Electra

This play is really a trilogy, consisting of "Homecoming," "The Hunted," and "The Haunted." Though it is set in post-Civil War New England, O'Neill used Aeschylus's tragedy The Oresteia as the basis for the plot. Lavinia Mannon desires revenge against her mother, Christine, who with the help of her lover Adam Brant has poisoned Lavinia's father Ezra; Lavinia persuades her brother Orin to kill Brant. A distressed Christine commits suicide, and, after Orin and Lavinia flee to the South Seas, Orin cannot stand the guilt and kills himself as well, leaving Lavinia in the house alone.
O'Neill

All the King's Men

this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power.
Warren

The Cherry Orchard

aristocratic russian woman trying to save estate as its being auctioned off to pay mortgage. Plays on concerns of societal status in russia at turn of century.
Chekhov

Oedipus Rex

Part of a triad of tragedies written concerning the life and death of Oedipus and his daughter, Antigone., a tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta
Sophocles

Don Quixote

Book published in 1605 that is often called the birth of the modern European novel. It is the story of a poor, crazy, Spanish nobleman who went around in rusty armor on a feeble horse. Some critics believe that Cervantes(the author) was mocking chivalry. Others believe that the book is about an idealistic person who longs for the romantic past because he is frustrated with his materialistic world.
Cervantes

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

An intelligent thirteen-year-old boy flees with an escaped slave and slowly recognizes the hypocrisy of his society;
Twain

Antigone

main character of play who buries her brother who is considered a traitor and put to death by Creon. Before she learns that she is free, she hangs herself.
Sophocles

Robinson Crusoe

a man is shipwrecked on an island, where he lives for more than 20 years, fending off cannibals and creating a pleasant life for himself
Defoe

Animal Farm

a group of animals mount a successful rebellion against the farmer who rules them, but their dreams of equality for all are ruined when one pig seizes power; novella, dystopian animal fable
Orwell

Rip Van Winkle

The title character goes to sleep after a game of bowling and much drinking in the mountains with a band of dwarfs. He awakes twenty years later and old man. Back home, Rip finds that all has changed; his wife is dead, his daughter is married, and the American Revolution has taken place.
Irving

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Story of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole. Peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures present. Plays with logic. Allusions to friends.
Carrol

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Written to commemorate the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean war, repetition is used to emphasise the doomed charge of the noble six hundred.
Tennyson

The Importance of Being Earnest

In this drama, Jack Worthing is an upright and prominent citizen. However he pretends to be his imaginary brother Earnest that is his alibi for messing around. In the end he learns that he does have a younger brother and his real name does include Earnest.
Wilde

The Magic Mountain

This book starts with Hans Castorp visits his TB infected cousin at the Sanatorium Berghof for 3 weeks. However he ends up staying there 7 years when also being contracting TB. The international clientèle at the sanitarium are an allusion to Europeans frivolous delusional behavior on the brink of war. There Castrop falls in love with another patient
Mann

Invisible Man

This story depicts a black man's struggle for identity. In the end, the unnamed narrator runs for his life and falls into a cellar. He decides to remain underground and write a novel about the absurdities of his life., It told about the life of a Southern black man who could not escape racism in the North.
Ellison

The Sound and the Fury

One of the narrators of this novel finds himself in trouble after attempting to help a little Italian girl, and another of the narrators works at Earl's farm supply store. Those characters' sister has a child, most likely with Dalton Ames, and names her after her brother whose college roommate is Shreve, Quentin. This novel concludes with Dilsey at an Easter church service, and another of its four narrators is the cynical Jason. Jason's sister Caddy runs off, devastating the mentally handicapped Benjy. Name this novel about the Compson family which takes its title from a line in Macbeth.
Faulkner