Literary Text Flashcards

The Awakening

• Author: Kate Chopin
• Publication Date: 1899
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: 1899, Grand Isle (a summer vacation spot for wealthy Creoles from New Orleans), and the French Quarter of New Orleans.
• Main Characters: Edna Pontellier, Robert Lebrun, Adèle
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Edna experiences realizations and seeks independence and self-fulfillment during a vacation. However, social conventions limit her self-expression.
• Tags: Feminism, self-determination, power of self-expression

Beloved

• Author: Toni Morrison
• Publication Date: 1987
• Genre: Novel (historical fiction)
• Setting: 1873 (with flashbacks to the early 1850s), Cincinnati, Ohio, Kentucky, and Alfred, Georgia.
• Main Characters: Sethe, Denver, Paul D., Beloved, Baby Suggs
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Sethe escapes slavery but kills her daughter to prevent her from being returned to the South. A mysterious figure appears, calling herself by the name on the daughter's tombstone.
• Tags: Supernatural, oppressive effects of slavery

Ethan Frome

• Author: Edith Wharton
• Publication Date: 1911
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: Massachusetts, late 19th and early 20th centuries
• Main Characters: Ethan Frome, Zenobia (Zeena) Frome, Mattie Silver
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Ethan Frome is a married man who cannot act upon his feelings for another woman.
• Tags: Social oppression, marriage

Frankenstein

• Author: Mary Shelley
• Publication Date: 1818
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: 18th-century Europe
• Main Characters: Robert Walton (narrator, in letters to his sister), Victor Frankenstein
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Victor Frankenstein discovers the secret to giving life to the inanimate but creates a "monster." The novel explores the results of unchecked ambition.
• Tags: Science fiction, horror, effects of ambition

The Glass Menagerie

• Author: Tennessee Williams
• Publication Date: 1945
• Genre: Play
• Setting: 1937, St. Louis
• Main Characters: The Wingfield family: Tom, Laura, and their mother Amanda
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: The family's situation is revealed through Tom's memories. Tom is worried about working a meaningless job instead of writing poetry. Amanda is worried that Laura will never find a suitor.
• Tags: Tragedy, family drama, symbolism, alienation

Great Expectations

• Author: Charles Dickens
• Publication Period: Serialized from December 1860 to August 1861
• Genre: Novel (coming of age)
• Setting: Kent and London, England, mid-19th century
• Main Characters: Pip, Joe, Mrs. Joe, Estella, Miss Havisham, Magwitch
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: A poor young boy receives money from an unknown benefactor and seeks to improve his status in life.
• Tags: Love, ambition, self-improvement, social class, symbolism, foreshadowing

The Great Gatsby

• Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Publication Date: 1925
• Genre: Novel, novel of manners
• Setting: Summer of 1922, New York City and Long Island, New York
• Main Characters: Nick Carraway (narrator), Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Gatsby accumulates a fortune to win the affections of Daisy Buchanan, but his past hinders his acceptance by her.
• Tags: 1920s, disparity among social classes, decline of the American Dream

Gulliver's Travels

• Author: Jonathan Swift
• Publication Date: 1726
• Genre: Satire (fictional narrative)
• Setting: Early 18th century, primarily in Great Britain, but also in fictional lands such as Brobdingnag
• Main Characters: Lemuel Gulliver, narrator
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Gulliver's voyages reveal the worst of human nature.
• Tags: Satire, fantasy, adventure, politics

Sula

• Author: Toni Morrison
• Publication Date: 1973
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: The Bottom, a predominantly Black community in Ohio, from 1919-1965
• Main Characters: Shadrack, Eva Peace, Hannah Peace, Sula Peace, Nel Wright, Tar Baby
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Worthless land given to Blacks becomes valuable, but the setting primarily anchors the story of the Peace family.
• Tags: Racism, poverty and hopelessness, good and evil, postwar stress

The Sun Also Rises

• Author: Ernest Hemingway
• Publication Date: 1926
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: Paris, France, and Pamplona and Madrid, Spain: 1924
• Main Characters: Jake Barnes, Brett Ashley
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Jake loves Brett Ashley, but his impotence hinders their relationship. His life is disrupted by his loyalty to Brett and her destructive love affairs.
• Tags: Lost Generation, disillusionment

Their Eyes Were Watching God

• Author: Zora Neale Hurston
• Publication Date: 1937
• Genre: Novel (coming of age, spiritual journey)
• Setting: Florida, 1920s or '30s
• Main Characters: Janie, Pheoby, Joe Starks, Tea Cake
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: Janie's quest teaches her about love and life's joys and sorrows.
• Tags: Dialect, self-determination, quest, race and racism, feminism

The Turn of the Screw

• Author: Henry James
• Publication Date: 1898
• Genre: Short novel, novella
• Setting: 1840s, Bly, a country home in Essex, England
• Main Characters: Douglas, Flora, the governess, Mrs. Grose, Miss Jessel, Miles, Peter Quint
• Main Plot/Idea/Concept: The governess fears the children in her care are being tormented by ghosts.
• Tags: Psychological novel, ghost story, sexual repression, madness