Category: Novel

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees is one of the most popular and urgent literary works nowadays. It touches upon burning issues of the modern society such as the conflict between ethical and legal, racism, adoption laws, homelessness, multiculturalism, kidnapping, depression suicide, the conflict of nature and nurture etc. We are going to analyze the importance of nature and nurture for a child’s bearing and development presented in Kingsolver’s work.

It should be noted that the author does not contrast the role of these basic influential factors for a child’s bearing and development. Kingsolver presents both these factors as very important and influential. She even gives the same status to both of them. The author points out that nurture may change a child’s bearing and even the whole life, but she does not forget about the fact that genes are impossible to change at all and they become apparent during a child’s life (Dowling 122).

The Bean Trees is a story about the woman who decides to begin a new life far from her parental house and the fate endows her with the possibility of becoming a mother. Although she does not have her own children, she has to become a mother for a little Indian girl. Kingsolver’s work is the story about the upbringing and development of a little Indian girl. The author presents this development in details pointing out the influence of her background and present environment. Taylor becomes a real mother for her and many people notice many similarities between them. These similarities are explained not by genetics but by the nurture. Despite all these similarities, Taylor as well as other people notices that there are a lot of things testifying to the fact that this little Indian girl, named Turtle is not Taylor’s blood child. Although many things in Turtle’s behavior may be changed, her genes are impossible to suppress.

The importance of hereditary ties is expressed in The Bean Trees in a full way. Estevan and Esperanza, two Mayan refugees from Guatemala, figuratively represent Turtle’s dead parents. There is no wonder that Turtle has so close relationships with them as far as they belong to the same ethnicity. This physical similarity may be caught between Esperanza and Turtle, but it is quite difficult to find these ties between Turtle and Taylor (Nurture, Loss, and Cherokee Identity 189). Such similarity is based on hereditary, and there is no wonder that Taylor and Turtle have different appearance as far as she is not her real mother. Nevertheless, Taylor influences Turtle’s behavior and there are a lot of common things uniting them at the spiritual level.

The Bean Trees expresses the importance of nurture. Taylor’s narration abounds with examples of how the expectations of parents influence children’s lives (Nurture, Loss, and Cherokee Identity 189). Taylor’s mother was the source of inspiration and encouragement for her as the reader may observe in the following words: “no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars” (Kingsolver 13). Her successful life is contrasted to Jolene Hardbine’s fate who got pregnant so young. Jolene explains her misery with the following words: “my daddy’d been calling me a slut practically since I was thirteen, so why the hell not?”(Kingsolver 12). It is the bright example how parental words may make their children happy on the one hand or spoil their life on the other hand. Taylor’s words and behavior influences Turtle’s life as well as Taylor’s mother affects her own life. There is even the example of the cat in the novel that becomes so good only because one owner calls him Snowboots and becomes bad when other owners call him Pachuco that is the name of a bad Mexican boy (Nurture, Loss, and Cherokee Identity 190). These examples testifies to the fact that parental attitude has a great influence over a child’s life.

The author points out the importance of nurture from the birth of the child as well as from the adoption. Adoption presupposes a new life for a child as well as a new environment and nurture. Although Taylor has become mother unintentionally, the author equates her with real mothers. Factually, Barbara Kingsolver points out that the word ‘mother’ is entitled not only to those women who give birth to children, but to those who bring up them as in the case of Taylor. Although Taylor does not accept the fact that she is the mother at first, and when a coworker asks her about the child she answers, “She’s not really mine…She’s just somebody I got stuck with”, at the end of the story she realizes that Turtle is her real daughter and nobody may deny this fact (Kingsolver 70).

Alice, Taylor’s mother, points out the resemblance between Turtle and Taylor in her childhood despite the fact that she is not her blood child. When Taylor says about Turtle, “You never know what she’s going to say”, Alice answers, “Well, she comes by that honest” (Kingsolver 299). Alice highlights the word “honest” pointing out the importance of nurture rather than heredity. Alice explains her point of view in the following words: “I don’t think blood’s the only way kids come by things honest. Not even the main way. It’s what you tell them, Taylor. If a person is bad, say, then it makes them feel better to tell their kids that they’re even worse. And then that’s just exactly what they’ll grow up to be” (Kingsolver 299). Taylor accepted the fact that Turtle is her real daughter despite her adoption. At the end of the narration Taylor says to Turtle: “I’m your Ma, and that means I love you the most. Forever” (Kingsolver 302). Having got the adoption certificate, Taylor accepts that Turtle is her real daughter and nobody has the right to deny this fact. Factually, Taylor realizes it even earlier, but this certificate gives her the right to be called mother legally. The author presents the situation when the word ‘mother’ refers to that woman who brings up a child despite the fact that she did not give the birth to this child (Gorton 2009). Taylor nurtures Turtle and it gives her the right to be called her real mother.

Although nurture is paid a lot of attention in The Bean Trees, the role of nature is also pointed out by the author. Taylor is one-eighth Cherokee by her nature and her attitude to Turtle may be explained as ethnic solidarity. Once time Taylor mentions her bond with Turtle, “Her great-great grandpa was full-blooded Cherokee…On my side. Cherokee skips a generation, like red hair” (Kingsolver 96). Taylor thinks over her roots and her belonging to Indians. She has noticed that she has the same appearance with Indian women on postcards with “the long, straight hair and the slender wrist bones” (Kingsolver 20). More than that, her favorite colors are the Indian ones namely red and turquoise. Taylor dresses Turtle in the same colors passing her this hereditary tradition (Decker 2003).

When Turtle finds out that her parents are dead, she buries her doll calling her ‘mama’. Taylor shares her sadness, but the most consolatory for her are Estevan and Esperanza who are the prototype of her dead parents. Taylor says that Estevan and Esperanza have the same “high-set, watching eyes and strong-boned faces” as Turtle has (Kingsolver 124). The existence of Estevan and Esperanza helps Turtle to get through her loss while she helps them to deal with their grief, the kidnapping of their own daughter (Nurture, Loss, and Cherokee Identity 192). It may seem that Estevan and Esperanza will be the best parents for Turtle due to their ethnical ties, but they personally reject this idea, “We love her, but we cannot take care for her…We move around so much, we have nothing, no home” (Kingsolver 214). Taylor’s care is necessary for Turtle and Taylor has become a good mother for her. This example testifies to the fact that nurture is as important as nature.

At the end of the narration Turtle seems to have “a comfortable hybrid identity” combining nurture and heredity (Nurture, Loss, and Cherokee Identity 197). The plot is structured around the establishment of Turtle’s personality with her family history as a Cherokee and her final point of becoming Taylor’s daughter. Plot is presented in such a way that the reader is involved in the debates between the importance of kinship, parenthood and families. The author presents the balance between the value of nature and nurture. Barbara Kingsolver expresses nurturing (environment) as important as nature (genetics).

The Bean Trees evokes debates concerning the question of motherhood whether nurture or birth makes a parent. Although the author points out the importance of nurture at the beginning of the poem presenting Taylor’s family and her own childhood, she does not deny the influence of genetics. The reader may observe this influence in Turtle’s behavior. Taylor is amazed with Turtle’s behavior sometimes and she says, “Doesn’t she walk like a queen? I swear I didn’t teach her that. It’s a natural talent” (Kingsolver 128). Even if Taylor influences Turtle’s behavior, her natural talents are impossible to be changed or suppressed. Kingsolver points out the power of genetics in Turtle’s behavior. Taylor “has had many moments of not believing she’s Turtle’s mother” (Kingsolver 10). Although Taylor and Turtle differ from each other physically, they have many common things making other people believe that they are blood mother and daughter. When Taylor’s mother, Alice, looks at them she concludes, “They share something physical, a beautiful way of holding still when they’re not moving” (Kingsolver 138). Alice explains such resemblance by their influence on each other. She points out that not only Taylor teaches Turtle but Turtle influences Taylor too.

Barbara Kingsolver presents the equal importance of nurture and nature in her work The Bean Trees. She connects this question to the debate about the right to be called mother. There are two kinds of mothers depicting in the story, namely ‘a biological mother’ connected to a child by nature and ‘a real mother’ who nurtures a child. Such differentiation may seem to give more influential power to nurture, but Kingsolver uses many examples testifying to the fact that nature is impossible to be suppressed anyway.

In combining realistic and imaginative elements to tell a moving and dreamlike story, The Scarlet Letter is an example of the romance genre. In fact, the novel`s original title was The Scarlet Letter: A Romance. While today we think of romances as love stories, and The Scarlet Letter does contain love scenes between its two protagonists, the term romance as Hawthorne uses it refers to a work of fiction that does not adhere strictly to reality. In the preface of the book, Hawthorne defines romance as taking place somewhere between the real world and fairyland, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbues itself with the nature of the other. The Scarlet Letter mixes the actual in the form of a historically accurate setting, believable characters, and realistic dialogue with elements of the imaginary, such as the giant A that lights up the night sky and the strange mark burned into Dimmesdale’s chest. These otherworldly effects heighten the sense of drama in the story and convey the feeling that while the exact story is probably not true, it conveys a deeper emotional truth that surpasses the specifics of the tale.

The Scarlet Letter also qualifies as a romance in that it incorporates fantastic elements while remaining emotionally and psychologically realistic. Hawthorne wrote in the preface of another of his romances, The House of the Seven Gables, that a romance sin unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne underscores the emotional veracity of his tale by qualifying the fantastical elements as possibly the result of the characters’ heightened emotional states. For example, when the A appears in the sky, he leaves open the possibility it is an optical illusion caused by Dimmesdale`s guilty conscience: We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart that the minister beheld there the appearance of an immense letter. Similarly, Hawthorne suggests some witnesses claimed there was no mark on Dimmesdale`s chest when he died on the scaffold. These acknowledgments that characters’ emotions influence their interpretation of events bolster the sense of psychological accuracy in the novel.

The Scarlet Letter is also a historical novel, in that it was written in 1850 but set in the 1640s and contains real-life settings, characters, and actual historical events. In setting his story in 17th-century Boston, Hawthorne explores the Puritanical foundation of our country and uses the period`s strict laws and repressive beliefs to ask enduring questions about the nature of sin and guilt. Several characters from the book are based on actual historical figures such as Governor Bellingham, Mistress Higgins, and the character of the narrator himself, whose life story closely follows Hawthorne`s own biography. Hester`s punishment for adultery in the form of a scarlet letter A affixed to her dress echoes the true instance of a woman named Mary Batcheller, who in 1651 was sentenced to have the letter A branded into her flesh after she was found guilty of an extramarital affair. (In The Scarlet Letter, one of the townswomen suggests Hester`s punishment is too lenient, and she should have had the brand of a hot iron on her forehead.) By the end of the 17th century, women convicted of adultery had to wear the letter A sewn into their clothes.

Hawthorne uses his historical setting to suggest that many of the beliefs and customs of his characters are the result of the times they`re living in and that society is continually moving between repressive and permissive modes. He compares the dour Puritanical community in Boston both to the sunny richness of Old World Europe, where Hester was born, and to the generations to follow, which, he writes wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it a reference to the Salem witch trials that would take place fifty years later. The character of Miss Hibbins, who freely boasts of consorting with the Black Man, or devil, in the book, is based on the real-life figure Mary Hibbins, who was executed for witchcraft in 1652. The fact that the townspeople tolerate Miss Hibbins, and gradually soften their stance towards Hester, implies that their Puritanism is more forgiving and humanitarian than the version that will be practiced by the next generation. In setting his novel in the past, Hawthorne comments not only on the morals of a specific period but contrasts them with both the past and the future.

Bohemian Rhapsody, a song, made by the band, Queen, is an old British hit song from the 1970s. This song has been largely been known as just another popular song from that era, until someone started to look closely at the lyrics. The lyrics show the constant thought of “fantasy” and “reality”. This of course is some of the main themes of The Stranger, by Albert Camus. The Stranger stars the main character Meursault as a young man who despises peoples views of life, and believes in the world of indifference. Bohemian Rhapsody shows relation and even descriptive detail towards the plot of The Stranger.

The Stranger is about a man, Meursault, who doesn’t care about whatever’s going on in his life and shoots a man for no reason. He rejects God and doesn’t show much emotion at all. As you listen to the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody, you can hear Meursault’s life being described. For example, in the first stanza, “Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.” This quote is talking about how Meursault views his life compared to everyone else. He feels that everyone lives in a world of emotion and he feels very much different. As you continue down the song you start to find more and more lyrics that have the same pattern. Like, “Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see, I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.” This pattern of song talks about the indifference of someone. Someone who believes they are different. That someone is Meursault. He believes that he doesn’t care to give sympathy and doesn’t care to receive it. Everything is meaningless to him, so why should he care for others. This remains the theme for both the song and the novel.

Not only does Bohemian Rhapsody describe how Meursualt from The Stranger thinks, it also gives detailed events of his life. Events like when Meursault decides to kill a man. “Mama, just killed a man, Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he’s dead.” This quote shows aside from killing the arab, it shows how he has little care toward his action. He just killed a man. For no reason. The song saying, “now he’s dead,” highlights the thought of the Meursault not having any care of any of his actions. The song even shows parts of the courtroom scene in the book. “He’s just a poor boy from a poor family, Spare him his life from this monstrosity!” This part of the song is other characters Celeste, Marie, Raymond all asking for his life to be spared in the courtroom. Bohemian Rhapsody continues to suggest and hint Meursault’s life which makes you question the true meaning of the song.

Although there are many similarities between the song Bohemian Rhapsody and the novel The Stranger, there are reasons to believe there is no relation. Meursault’s mother dies before the beginning of the book, and he shows absolutely no concern for her. Why would he call out for her repeatedly? This is because despite not showing any hint of emotion throughout most of the book, at the very end he has the capacity to relate to his mother. Many questions are raised as if these two pieces are similar by mere coincidence. This is not the case. The song and the novel show too much resemblance between each other to not be based on each other.

In the novels and stories read this unit, many characters represent and discuss different aspects of human nature and life, as well as represent how society really is. In human nature, people are naturally greedy, selfish, and self-centered. Since the beginning of the semester, every novel labeled and discussed various aspects of human nature whether it was a negative or positive perception of the characters. The stories that will be discussed are “Miss. Brill”, “Bullet in the Brain”, “Big Foot Stole My Wife/I am Big Foot”, “ The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, “Hunters in the Snow”, “The Shelter”.

In the first novel “Miss Brill”, the main character is a woman who is blind to the real world and society and isn’t socially accepted by anyone around her but she thinks otherwise. “An actress!’ The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. ‘An actress the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of been an actress for a long time.’ (3). This quote shows that Miss Brill sees way more in herself than anyone else at the park does. She calls herself an actress and convinces everyone else that she is but we all know she wasn’t. ‘Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?’ ‘It’s her fu-ur which is so funny,” (3). This quote represents the dissatisfaction the other characters have for Miss Brill being at the part people watching. In addition, they are laughing at her clothing and asking why she doesn’t just sit at home. In this novel, there are two sides of human nature which is Miss Brill’s perspective and then the people around her. Miss Brill is very innocent and just looks to be accepted and friendly. But, everyone else at the part was very hostile and disrespectful to Miss Brill whenever she showed interest in them. This shows society is very self-centered and unaccepting of new people.

The next novel “Bullet in the Brain”, is about a very cocky character named Anders who is practically fearless of death, or at least that’s what it looked like. He is in a bank and out of nowhere robbers come through and threaten everyone with a gun. Anders doesn’t take them seriously and begins to laugh and mock them. “Oh, bravo,” Anders said. “‘Dead meat.’” He turned to the woman in front of him. “Great script, eh? The stern, brass-knuckled poetry of the dangerous classes.” This shows Anders is careless and doesn’t seem to worry about how much danger he is in. He is so confident in himself that he continues to make jokes even after the robbers are pointing a gun at his head. Eventually, he pushes his luck too far and out of nowhere gets shot point-blank in the head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, “Capiche-oh, God, capiche,” and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shot Anders right in the head.” This quote shows that Anders is overly confident which ends very poorly for him. This story shows that some people in society are very cocky and overly confident. Humans always act the way Anders did without knowing the consequences. At the beginning of the story, he made jokes and was practically mocking the bank robbers. But, when they actually shot him, he didn’t have much to say.

In the next novel “I am Bigfoot”, an unfaithful and poor husband named Rick that blames his mistakes on something that doesn’t even exist and everyone fails to see that except him. Instead of owning his mistakes and coming to terms that his wife found another man, he tells everyone that bigfoot stole his wife. He seems to be the only one to believe this story as everyone else is just playing along. “Its a fact and I know its a fact: Bigfoot has been in my house. Bigfoot stole my wife. She’s Gone. Believe it.” This quote shows that society tends to lie and not take action for their mistakes. This is a perfect example, Rick has a problem with his wife and instead of handling it the right way he convincing himself it wasn’t his fault. In the next story, “The Shelter” a man that owns a shelter in case of an emergency that is only for his family. As soon as disaster strikes and there is a threat of an unknown aircraft, he and his family go to the shelter with food and water. Minutes later, his neighbors are banging on the door beginning to let them and screaming as if they have the right to be in the shelter. They begin to scream at him as if he is in the wrong. Once everyone finds out the attack was a false alarm, they begin to treat him normally again. This shows that humans naturally have a sense of entitlement and selfishness as shown in this episode of “The twilight zone”.

In conclusion, humans are naturally worried about themselves. In society, they are entitled, and self-centered. As seen in every novel these characters use this to cover up problems and issues instead of facing them. This compares to real life because these characters represent how people really are in the world. These characters are awfully similar to people In the real world that lie, cheat, and hide behind problems to achieve whatever is they need to achieve.

In the novel Passing by Nella Larsen the audience experiences what is called, the rites of passage. They have a sense that they are attempting to be something that they are not meant to be by constructing an illusion that they believe influence other people that they posses an identity. The Rites of Passage is what each adolescent goes through in their life, along with adults in certain aspects. In this novel I was able to look at the underlying message and challenges that connect with the two main characters and how they will either conquer or relinquish their feelings.

The repression of sexuality for black authors, specifically for female black authors who want to write about any kind of sexuality. Because of this time period, not only those of the black culture, but females African Americans were experiencing a lot of discrimination when writing about sexuality. Not only were woman of the white culture not looked at as novelist, but imagine being a minority woman. This era was when women especially were used as sexual objects that men felt as if they oversaw their every move. There were many black female novelists who wanted to break free of the clique objectifications of woman and rape. Larsen was thought to attempt to write about sexual desires for the culture of black woman without making it seem desperate and more respectful. For example, in the novel, passing, Irene is known to be sexually suppressed and more contained with her feelings. In the novel it explains how Irene Redfield and her husband do not even sleep in the same bedroom, they have separate rooms and have a very unstable marriage. This drives the audience to start thinking about how Irene’s confused and unsure of her own sexuality and the connection to her feelings about Clare. Which brings us to the idea of, rites of passage, because in a way Irene is enlightened by her sexual desires towards Clare.

In the novel, Irene describes Clare with more than just ordinary diction. Irene uses stimulating and sensual diction to entice the audience to think about the homosexuality in this novel. There are a lot of undertones throughout this novel that rely on Irene’s fascination with Clare’s beauty. This kind of homosexuality was a bold move for Larsen in a novel, which is why it is more of a hidden aspect of the book and why many of the audience don’t always comprehend this aspect. The books analysis of a rites of passage is not only in the theme of identity for culture but many different levels of themes.

One way in which the novel hints at this hidden theme is through the marriage of Irene and Brian. Through their marriage we can see hints about how Irene might be feeling and thinking about a certain childhood friend. For instance, we see how their relationship is completely sexless considering they live in two separate bedrooms and are co parents to their child more than a father and mother. This gives the author the ability to play around with how the audience sees the main characters.

Throughout the novel we see many developments and hints at what Larsen wanted us to see between these two characters. For example, at the Drayton Hotel on the rooftop when Irene gets a first glance at Clare, she depicts Clare as this, “a sweetly scented woman in a fluttering dress of green chiffon whole mingles pattern of narcissuses, jonquils, and hyacinths was a reminder of pleasantly chill spring days.” In this quote I didn’t realize what jonquils and narcissuses were until I researched them. These are flowers that are used as a symbol for her love for Clare that she connects to the physical appearance more than the character of the person. Which goes very well for when Larsen uses this simile, “from the very beginning of their re-encounter, Irene is drawn to Clare like a moth to a flame.”

Something that was also hinted at throughout the novel was the fact that not only are the two main characters struggling with their homosexuality, but how Irene’s husband Brian is dealing with his own turmoil. Brian is known to want to travel frequently to Brazil, and not just for the scenery or food. Instead Brian enjoys the leniency that the natives have on homosexuality rather than being around the friendly United states. The queer thoughts of Brian are almost a screen play for Irene and her own passing in the novel. For Irene she becomes intensively jealous of Clare and Brian’s relationship and becomes convinces they are having an affair. Although in the beginning this may seem like a crazy and absurd thought, it makes sense when you put yourself in the shoes of Irene. For her, this imagination is almost a teaser, and makes her erotic feelings for Clare seem more taunting and arousing.

In this novel there is a lot of jealousy that arouses from not just another’s riches or class, but instead the love that one cannot share. Irene has jealousy that is stemming off of what she adores about Clare, like her charisma. Irene has all these feelings and interests for Clare and they are not always a good thing. For example, in the novel they both attend the Negro welfare League Dance and when Irene sees Clare she feels so drab and ordinary compared to how she sees her. She describes Clare as being a unique, refreshing, magnificent woman who has opened her sight. In this novel there are two different aspects to this novels version of jealousy or shall we say Irene’s version. She shows not only her insane amount of warmth but also her bitterness towards Clare on the journey to maybe one day be able to express these feelings. With all of these feeling taking over her thoughts she lets them get ahold of her and eventually starts to think that her husband Brian might be influence by the same sexual desires that are consuming her. This fear of losing her family, what she had even before connecting back with Irene and then what she had built for herself. As a middle class African American woman her life is not easy, and deciding weather or not she should expose Clare for the life she has been living.

“She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it might be, all three. Nothing, she imagine, was ever more completely sardonic,” (Shmoop).

Larsen uses this as the main source of conflict throughout passing and tries to involve the reader in Irene’s decision. Should she go off and expose Clare to whom she really is? If it was me, there is no doubt I would go off and expose her for who she really is. Fortunately, though for Clare, I am not able to speak with Irene about her twisted thoughts and give her the security that she desires. Irene strives to have comfort and security, but it is the vulnerability that Clare offers that pulls her in. And although her feelings do have a factor in her not calling Clare out, it is also the loyalty to her race that drives her away from the idea.

Even though the novel is primarily about Irene and her jealousy of Clare and of Brian, we are able to get a look into Clare’s jealousy of Irene as well. Irene lives a lifestyle that many wish they could thrive in, instead of being put into this “box” that society puts them in. Irene is thriving in this life of being able to enrich her culture, connect to her community, and live a life that is accepting of who she is. Of course society isn’t kind or always fair to people in the black culture, especially the woman, but there is no need to mope around and dwell on what society is saying. When we get the first experience of Clare and Irene getting together we see the contradiction of their feelings of both their lifestyles. When Clare visits Irene she is the first to express her loneliness and the way in which she was isolated. Yet, while Irene tries to one up her by expressing how she felt, Clare is quick to backfire,”How could your know? How could you? You’re free. You’re happy,” (Larsen). This was one of true moments we sneak away from Irene’s inner war and turmoil to really understand Clare. She, like Irene, only wants to be understood and heard for once.

Of course in this novel there is not escape on the discussion of race. This book revolves around races and is an endless spinning door where different themes go in and out. In Passing this book speaks over whiteness and how Larsen chose to use the characters trials with race and whiteness in the 1920’s. These characters that Larsen has developed are explaining what some still experience today. Clare, for example, is living a life in which she identifies as a woman who is of the white culture. Yet, Clare is not white, but only passing as white because she only half black and half white. The skin tone in which Clare has is able to give her the ability to choose what life style she wants, one of the white or black culture. Irene, is a character who chose to stay true to her culture of being half black and lives a life of less luxury than Miss Clare, but Irene still used her skin tone at certain moments to get ahead. Society at this time gave those

Introduction

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of Thomas Hardy’s best novels – perhaps it is his very best. The beautiful simplicity of his style when, as usual, he forgets he is writing, the permeating healthy sweetness of his description, the idyllic charm and yet the reality of his figures, his apple-sweet women, his old men, rich character as old oaks, his love-making, his fields, his sympathetic atmosphere – all these, and any other of Hardy’s best qualities we can think of, are to be found widest commonly spread in Tess.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is not only the richest novel that Hardy ever wrote, it is also the culmination of a long series of Victorian texts, which identify, enact, and condemn the alienated condition of modernity. The undermining of a reader’s expectations is already common in the Victorian novel form. Yet Hardy goes further with irony and surprise than even his favorite novelist, the equally subversive William Makepeace Thackeray. Doubleness, multiplicity, and irony are key aspects of a strain of Victorian aesthetics and artistic practice working at the limits of conservative doxa from the 1830s until the end of the century. It is through this intellectual formation that Hardy’s work can best be understood.

In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, it is not the image of girl that is split into two characters, although the tendency, although the tendency is represented in Angel has prolonged inability to reconcile his image of the innocent milkmaid with the reality of a sexually experienced girl. His remark to Tess that ‘You were one person; now you are another (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) might be interpreted as an attempt to deny or defend against the possibility that he might love her in spite of her experience. The double standard that he employs in judging Tess and not himself is both a curious and characteristic example of the kind of doubling one finds in the attitude toward girls in a great deal of fiction. The sleepwalking scene at Wellbridge, for example, when Angel attempts to bury Tess, might be interpreted as an extension of the doubling, an attempt to deny the sexual nature of woman.

It is rather the attitude towards woman in Tess of the D’Urbervilles that is split into two characters. Alec and Angel, one taking an attitude that woman is primarily a sexual object, the other an attitude that denies her sexual nature through idealization. The approximate representation of these two attitudes may be seen in an apparent doubling of male characters similar to the one of female characters, at least to the extent that the heroes or other principal male characters are frequently to be found in rivalry with a rake or other figure who has had a wider and often socially unacceptable sexual relationship with a woman or whose relationship with women seems primarily sexual.

Tess is the most satisfying of all Hardy’s heroines. She is by no means so empty-headed as they are won’t to be, but, like her sisters, she is a fine Pagan, full of humanity and imagination, and, like them, though in a less degree, flawed with that lack of will, that fatal indecision at great moments. All of Hardy’s fiction reflects his deep pessimism. In his novels, man never seems to be free; the weight of time and place presses heavily on him, and, above everything, there are mysterious forces, which control his life. Man is a puppet whose strings are worked by fate, which is either hostile or indifferent to him. He dedicated himself to writing short stories, but then returned to writing novels and produced two works of great stature.

Literary critics of the day attack these works, accusing Hardy of pessimism and immorality. This hostile reaction convinced Hardy to give up fiction and to go back to poetry, which he had written since his youth. Over the next thirty years, Hardy published eight collections of poetry, which include over 800 poems. At the height of his fame, in 1910, he was awarded the Order of Merit as one of the country’s prominent men of letters. Although his marriage was not happy, the sudden death of his wife in 1912 triggered a period o depression and remorse out of which came one of his finest collections of poetry, Poems of 1912-1913. In 1914, he remarried and continued working relentlessly until he died at the age of eighty-seven. He was buried in the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.

The Story and the Theme of Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) is a profound and a beautiful study of the frustration of human intention by fantasy and by the harshness of human conventions. Tess and Clare are in part victim of their misperceptions of each other: their story is a particular example of a general human disposition position to believe (erroneously, in Hardy’s view) that the world has been created for the benefit of mankind. Tess is a figure of deep pathos, part Erosun fulfilled, part Agape unrecognized.

The Story of the Novel

Tess, a poor country girl, learns that she is descended from a noble family the d’Urbervilles. When she goes to find her rich relatives, she is seduced by Alec d’Urbervilles and has a baby who dies in infancy. She goes to work on a dairy farm and falls in love with Angel Clare. On their wedding night, she reveals the secret of her relationship with Alec. Angel reacts angrily, abandons her and goes to Brazil. Out of necessity, and to help her family, she goes back to Alec. When she hears that Angel has returned to England and realizes he has forgiven her, she kills Alec in a fit of anger. Tess and Angel run away to escape from the police but she is eventually captured at Stonehenge and hanged.

The Portrayal of a Pure Girl in Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Tess as Half –woman and Half- girl Hardy prevents his readers from regarding character as a unifying force or coherent reference point. He fractures his central characters through multiple point of view and multiple genres. Just as Marl out itself may be viewed from various locations and positions, so Tess is observed from perspectives that are not only variegated but also are conflicting. Tess is aristocratic by lineage, bourgeois by education, and a rural proletarian by birth. She speaks bilingually; dialect and Standard English. Hardy deliberately makes her half-woman and half-girl. When we first meet her, Tess’s face supposedly reflects different phases of her youth, ”you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then. …. Later, her fluctuating moods alter a face that is sometimes pink and flawless, yet pale and tragic at other times. Hardy claims that she is forever served from her childhood innocence by her experience in the Chase, yet counters his assertion whenever he continues to treat the adult Tess as a childlike innocent.

Tess as a Crumby Girl

Through her suitors often perceive her monochromic – ally Tess is never one thing. When Angel can no longer see her as the equally worshipful narrator does, he must stereotype her as soiled. Yet his earlier idealization of Tess as a nature goodness, which she disowned, was just as reductive. Despite the clarity his surname ”Clare” evokes, Angel shows himself to be as limited in perception as Alec, who first narrowly admires her as a juicy morsel, a ”crumbly girl” (p. 46). Unlike these two central suitors, the narrator does not waver in seeing Tess doubly. For example, even after, she becomes a mother and assumes a more handsome womanliness, and even after her erotic attraction to Angel, she does not lose her virginal qualities for the narrator. However, if the narrator is dual, perspective undercuts the single-mindedness of Alec and Angel; it is not exempt from criticism. The presence of the implied author, known to the reader by the sum of all the text’s point of view, reveals the narrator’s point of view to be overly romantic and egocentric.

As Tess’s third suitor and a mixture of the other two, the narrator combines Angel’s spirituality and Alec’s cynicism. Yet even though he exhibits an erotic sensuousness that resembles Alec’s and often adopts the ever-intellectualized pedantic and circumlouctionary style of Angel, this prime suitor is also mocked by an implied author who asks us to recognize that the narrator is an eager as these who male characters are to possess a femininity which remains unpossessed, dispossessed, unclaimed, and above all, unable to be possessed, because valued for the wrong reasons.

Tess and the idea of Love at First Sight

Numerous Hardy’s critics, among them some of the earliest, have attempted to identify the special features of Hardy’s fictive world (Irwin 1990, p.45). One of the features noted most often, and one that throws some light on the psychology in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, is the idea of love at firs sight. It recurs with sufficient frequency to seem at times a virtual prerequisite of romance. In A Pair of Blue Eyes, an early novel that seems to prefigure some of the psychological issues in Tess of the D’Urbervilles more clearly than any other, Stephan Smith falls in love with Elf ride the first time he sees her: It comes to this sole simple thing: that at one time I had never seen you, and I didn’t love you; that I saw you, and I did love you (p. 66). Angel and Tess do not fall in love when they first lay eyes on each other at the May-Day dance in Marlott, but Angel’s memory of this first sight of Tess is used later as a basis for choosing her when they meet again at Talbothays Diary: He concluded that he had beheld her before; where he could not tell. A casual encounter during some country ramble it certainly had been, and he was not greatly curious about it.

However, the circumstance was sufficient to lead him to select Tess in preference to other pretty milkmaids when wished to contemplate contiguous womankind. (p. 155). Love at first sight, or a retrospective appeal to the idea, as in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, usually suggests that the two lovers, sometimes against their will, are fated for each other. The psychological basis of the idea is that the lover has in mind a prior, idealized image that they suddenly encountered object appears to match. Angel is in love with an image of his own making. The image is one of rustic innocence and virgin purity. His first comment to himself about Tess is, ‘What a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is” (p. 156). When walking together in the midsummer dawn to the milking: She was no longer the milkmaid, but a visionary essence of woman- a whole sex condensed unto one typical form. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names (p. 167). When she says ‘Call me Tess’, he does, but he persists in idealizing her. At the heart of his image of her is an expectation of virginity so strong as to be virtually a demand. After Tess’s confession, he told on to the image: ”Nothing so pure, so sweet, so virginal as Tess had seemed possible all the long while that he adored her, up to an hour ago” (301), the discovery of what is later referred to as Tess’s “un-intact state” (p. 435) so alters her appearance in his eyes that she seems to be a different person: ”You were one person; now you are another” (p. 292). Tess, in desperation, asks if he has stopped loving her. He answers that: ”The woman I have been loving is not you”. ”However, who?” she asks: ”Another woman in your shape” (p. 293).

Conclusion

The salient point for a reader for the fiction, however, remains the conflict between the sensuous and affectionate feelings in Hardy’s imaginary world. Equally important to note is that a proper interpretation of the origin and significance of the conflict will not allow it to be in exclusively biographical terms. Although Tess is a creation of Hardy’s imagination, she is also representative in certain ways of an image of the culture in which Hardy lived. While his imagination may be thought to have been first nurtured in a matrix of primal relationships, the most formative of which would have been with his mother, it was later weaned from its personal and provincial origins by a cultural matrix that conceived of the human being as a double, body and soul, split between earthly origins and high aspirations.

Suzanne Collins`s The Hunger Games trilogy, a dystopian story set in post-apocalyptic North America – now Panem, has been heralded as one of the greatest Young Adult book series, losing only to Harry Potter in NPR`s poll of the one hundred best teen novels. The Hunger Games is largely a tale of conflict, exploitation, and rebellion, with political and economic issues at the narrative`s core. Karl Marx argues that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle, and I believe that The Hunger Games serves as an example of the proletariat realizing their position in this class struggle, and rising up against the bourgeoisie as represented in the novels by those in the Capitol. In this essay, I will attempt to show how Collins`s series can be viewed from a Marxist perspective as a representation of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie that exists in a capitalist society. The Districts of Panem – the proletariat, are subjugated to a poor quality of life, alienated from their labor, and pitted against one another. However, the inhabitants of Panem eventually gain class consciousness; breaking free from the chains of their oppression and successfully enacting a Communist revolution, as Marx predicts will happen in any capitalist system.

Panem is divided into 13 Districts, all of which specialize in a sector of production of which the produce goes to the distant city of the Capitol in order for them to live their lives of luxury. The specialization ranges from coal and crops in Districts 12 and 11, to jewelry and weapons in Districts 1 and 2. The borders between districts, like the borders of our capitalist society, seek to divide us by stoking an us-vs-them narrative, embodied in our modern world by Trump`s Wall. Like our nations, the Districts are fractured both culturally and physically, and this division aims to distract from the overall horror of the current system by setting the focus on doing what is best for your immediate circle rather than for the collective; the globe, and Panem. Districts 1 and 2 believe they are in conflict with Districts 11 and 12 when really the fight is between the proletariat comprised of all of the Districts, and the bourgeoisie living in the Capitol. Districts 1 and 2 can be seen as the middle class of Panem, however, Marx states that the middle-class are still a member of the proletariat, as the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population, and this distinction functions only to turn the proletariat against each other rather than against the bourgeoisie. Even within District 12, there is a lack of class consciousness between the lower middle-class bakery owners and Katniss, the daughter of a coal miner: suddenly a voice was screaming at me and I looked up to see the baker`s wife, telling me to move on and did I want her to call the Peacekeepers and how sick she was having those brats from Seam pawing through her rubbish. The proletariat has been fed the narrative of us-vs-them to the extent that despite being in poverty themselves, they are angered by those more hungry and dejected than them looking for food in their refuse. Poverty is commonplace in the Districts, Katniss reveals that starvation is not an uncommon fate in District 12, showing just how desperate their lives have become as a result of bourgeois exploitation.

Regardless of the substantial production levels of each District, the occupants still live in poverty, this is because the members of all the Districts exist to provide for the Capitol. The Districts have been turned into production centers in a fully integrated economic system that bleeds the people of their potential power and wealth to sustain itself. Despite their labor producing a great deal of capital for the Capitol, they see none of the wealth themselves; Katniss is shocked to learn that Rue and the rest of District 11 are as poor and starving as those in District 12, despite being the supplier of crops to the Capitol, Rue says oh we`re not allowed to eat the crops, showing how the proletariat is alienated from their production. The workers are also alienated from their labor, as Marx writes: [the] work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. This idea is reflected directly in The Hunger Games, as Katniss tells us our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shifts at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, and swollen knuckles, many of who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. Not only are the workers exploited by the Capitol – the bourgeoisie – their work is also boring and repetitive and does not challenge them, thus alienating them from their labor.

In order to keep the proletariat from rebelling against the systematic oppression of the bourgeoisie, as they had 74 years prior to the events of The Hunger Games, the Capitol hosts an annual Hunger Games. This tradition is used to keep the districts in line, by reinforcing the ultimate power that the Capitol holds. Katniss tells us in punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve Districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes the last tribute standing wins Taking the kids from our Districts, and forcing them to kill one another while we watch this is the Capitol`s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. The Games serve two purposes, firstly as described by Katniss they remind those in the districts of the Capitol`s relentless power, but they also entertain a superficial crowd within the Capitol which revels in the conspicuous consumption that the system provides the fruit of rugged capitalism that feeds on the twelve Districts. The tributes for the Hunger Games are selected through the process of reaping, its very name reinforcing the extent to which the Capitol has turned the members of the Districts into capital, a commodity harvested for the Capitol`s appetite. Additionally, those eligible for the reaping are able to receive one year`s supply of grain in exchange for a tessera, however, each tessera requires the individual to enter their name additional times into the lottery, significantly increasing their chances of being selected for the Games. Thus, reaping is a microcosm of the broader society, as it further disadvantages the poorest citizens who must increase their odds of being reaped in order to receive the minimum amount of food needed to survive.

The Games themselves are one of the most easily identifiable instances of one`s class defining their position in society. The likelihood of winning the Games is significantly impacted by traits such as one`s District, most clearly expressed through the Career Tributes from the symbolic middle class of Districts 1 and 2, who have been trained over their entire lives solely for success in the Games. The Career Tributes are not at an advantage solely because of their skill, due to living in the wealthier districts they also have more potential for sponsors and wealthy donors who can pay the Capitol to have gifts dropped to the tributes during the Games, again increasing their likelihood of success. The training that the Career Tributes receive is analogous to private schooling in our own society, which gives those with more money better tools for success later in life. The Games may seem to be a fair competition in concept, but in reality, they are decided by background, much like the capitalist myth of meritocracy. Furthermore, the games further the divide between the Districts: the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every District against the others. By having only one winner of the Games it removes any chance of cooperation and pits people even from the same District and class against one another removing any chance for collective action and enforcing the kind of rugged individualism that capitalism promotes. Through setting the Districts against each other, citizens focus on their own District winning The Games, rather than ending them. To end this hegemony would require cross-border solidarity, and this comes about through Katniss’s compassion towards Rue: who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I`m tired of being a piece in their games. Towards the end of the first novel in The Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss sparks the fire of revolution through her and Peeta`s double-suicide plan, forcing the Capitol to amend the rules regarding their only being one victor. This act of rebellion is the culmination of economic and political struggles that undermine a nation, eventually uniting Panem`s Districts in the struggle for justice.

Catching Fire and Mockingjay are largely concerned with the revolution that Katniss sparked following her actions in both of the Games that she is forced to participate. Katniss can be seen to have gained class consciousness following the Games: to hate this boy from District 1 seems so inadequate. It`s the Capitol I hate, and as President Snow says if a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol What is to prevent, say, an uprising? Marx predicts that when the conditions of class conflict become too strained, the proletariat will rise up and he does not believe that this will be through reformation: the proletariat cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. Marx`s ideas of Communist revolution are evident in The Hunger Games trilogy, the Districts have been subjected to poverty for decades in order to satisfy the Capitol and now their situation has become so desperate that they have stirred, developing class consciousness and unity through their hate for the Capitol. Their labor makes the bourgeoisie strong, but it can also make them weak, as shown through the general strikes and destruction of hydroelectric power plants in the books: what the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave diggers. The text shows us that Capitalism, which is in itself designed to be Dystopian, oppressive, and totalitarian, cannot be reformed, it must be abolished. Marx explains that the union between the proletariat is helped by the improved means of communication it was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same characters, into one national struggle between classes. This idea is directly reflected in Mockingjay; following the events of Catching Fire, Beetee and the rebels are able to hijack the Capitol`s nationwide broadcasting system and for the first time, the Districts are able to communicate, which makes the organization of the revolution significantly more effective. Collins sends out a strong message at the revolutionary ending of the trilogy, she shows that one must not surrender in the face of bigotry and oppression. Instead one should stand up to eradicate the discrimination between the powerful and the powerless within society, which seems to agree with Marx`s revolutionary summons to workers: let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

The Hunger Games is a hugely popular Young Adult novel, the subjection, marginalization, and marginalization of the working class can influence teens across the world into viewing their own lives as a struggle between the classes, indirectly introducing them to Marxist theory from a young age. Collins offers readers something both uncommon and refreshing: progressive or radical fiction for young readers that involves collective action on a large social scale.

Introduction

David Guterson’s novel “Snow Falling on Cedars” is a captivating literary work that explores themes of love, justice, and racial prejudice. Set on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, the novel delves into the murder trial of a Japanese-American man accused of killing a fellow fisherman. Through Guterson’s masterful use of symbolism and the portrayal of internal and external conflicts, “Snow Falling on Cedars” examines the complexities of human nature and the impact of societal biases. This essay will analyze the symbolism and conflict in the novel, shedding light on the profound messages conveyed by Guterson.

Symbolism

Guterson employs various symbols throughout the novel to convey deeper meanings and enhance the reader’s understanding of the narrative. The snow, for instance, represents both beauty and isolation. The recurring image of snowfall creates a sense of quiet, yet it also serves as a reminder of the isolation and division within the community. The cedars, on the other hand, symbolize strength, resilience, and the connection to nature. The presence of these towering trees signifies the characters’ struggles and their ability to endure despite the hardships they face. Symbolism plays a significant role in immersing readers into the emotional landscape of the story.

Internal Conflict

The characters in “Snow Falling on Cedars” grapple with their own internal conflicts, torn between their desires and societal expectations. Ishmael Chambers, the protagonist, wrestles with his love for Hatsue, a Japanese-American woman, and the deep-seated prejudice he encounters within his community. His internal conflict reflects the larger conflict of the novel, exploring the tension between love and racial prejudice. Similarly, Hatsue faces an internal struggle as she navigates her cultural identity and her forbidden love for Ishmael. Guterson skillfully portrays these internal conflicts, highlighting the complexity of human emotions and the challenging choices individuals must make.

External Conflict

The novel is also rife with external conflicts that drive the narrative forward. The murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American accused of killing Carl Heine, sets the stage for the exploration of racial tensions and the pursuit of justice. The conflict between the prosecution and the defense attorneys mirrors the larger conflict between the Japanese-American community and the predominantly white population of the island. Guterson vividly depicts the courtroom drama and the clash between different ideologies, raising questions about fairness, prejudice, and the search for truth.

Racial Prejudice

One of the central themes in “Snow Falling on Cedars” is racial prejudice and its devastating consequences. Guterson explores the impact of World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans on the characters’ lives and relationships. The novel confronts the deep-seated biases and stereotypes prevalent in society, highlighting the destructive power of prejudice. Through the lens of the murder trial, Guterson forces readers to confront their own biases and challenges them to consider the true nature of justice and equality.

Conclusion

“Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson is a thought-provoking novel that delves into themes of love, justice, and racial prejudice. Through the use of symbolism, Guterson creates a rich and immersive narrative, allowing readers to delve into the emotional landscape of the story. The conflicts, both internal and external, highlight the complexities of human nature and the consequences of societal biases. Guterson’s exploration of racial prejudice serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of empathy, understanding, and the pursuit of justice. “Snow Falling on Cedars” stands as a timeless literary work that continues to resonate with readers, challenging them to examine their own beliefs and confront the complexities of the human condition.

Santiago finding his treasure in Andalusia instead of the Pyramids is significant because it promotes the theme that the journey is the reward, not the destination. Soon after Santiago and the Alchemist leave for the Pyramids, Santiago asks if following his heart is all he needs to know, the Alchemist replies with, “What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream” (Coelho 136-137). The Alchemist’s response is meant to get Santiago to realize that the tests he faces only help him master the lessons he learns along the way towards his destination of the Pyramids. The tests help him appreciate the lessons as rewards. When Santiago ultimately goes to dig the treasure in Andalusia, he hears a voice call out, “If I had told you, you wouldn’t have seen the Pyramids. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” (170). The voice is a message of God and serves as a final reminder to Santiago that his journey to the Pyramids was the reward despite the trials he went through. Santiago’s happiness despite his journey ending where he began in Andalusia exemplifies the theme that the journey is the reward, not the destination.

In The Alchemist, one can either not fulfill a Personal Legend within a lifetime or have multiple Personal Legends. After the tribe captures Santiago and the Alchemist, the Alchemist tries to convince Santiago to not fear death, telling him, “Then you’ll die in the midst of trying to realize your Personal Legend. That’s a lot better than dying like millions of other people, who never even knew what their Personal Legends were” (146). The Alchemist’s reassurance proves two things about Personal Legends. The first is that one could die before achieving their Personal Legend. The other is that one could die before ever learning what their Personal Legend is. These two points together prove that it is entirely possible for one to never fulfill their Personal Legend. When Santiago is talking to the Sun about love, he says, “It’s true that everything has its Personal Legend, but one day that Personal Legend will be realized. So each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only” (154). While Santiago does state that everything’s Personal Legend will be realized, it does not specifically state that it would be within one’s lifetime. His message to the Sun also proves one can have multiple Personal Legends since one gets another Personal Legend when one transforms into someone better. Santiago’s adventure reveals that one can have multiple Personal Legends but one may be unable to achieve one Personal Legend in one life.

The Alchemist is titled as such because, although the novel focuses on Santiago and his adventure, it represents Santiago’s connection with the Soul of the World. When the Alchemist and Santiago passed by a camp, the Alchemist says “You already know about alchemy. It is about penetrating to the Soul of the World, and discovering the treasure that has been reserved for you” (141). The Alchemist’s belief that Santiago already knows about alchemy and can connect to the Soul of the World shows that Santiago is beginning to become an alchemist himself. After Santiago turns himself into the wind “there were two people who were smiling: the alchemist, because he had found his perfect disciple, and the chief, because that disciple had understood the glory of God” (158). Santiago was only able to turn into the wind because of his connection with the Soul of the World. The Alchemist, knowing that Santiago had connected with the Soul of the World, believes that Santiago has become his perfect disciple and has become an alchemist himself. Santiago’s adventure leads to him becoming an alchemist himself which leads to the title of the novel being The Alchemist.

The crystal merchant has the greatest influence on Santiago’s journey because he gives Santiago the encouragement to continue his journey after his first trial. When Santiago asks why the crystal merchant does not go to Mecca, he replies with, “I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living” (57). Because the crystal merchant is afraid of his dreams, he serves as an example of one who does not follow their Personal Legend. His example encourages Santiago not to follow the same path as the crystal merchant and instead to pursue his Personal Legend. The day before Santiago leaves, the crystal merchant tells him, “You brought a new feeling into my crystal shop. But you know that I’m not going to go to Mecca. Just as you know that you’re not going to buy your sheep” (63). The crystal merchant realizes his inability to follow his Personal Legend but does not want Santiago to face the same fate. His final reminder to Santiago to follow his Personal Legend subconsciously gets Santiago to not return to Spain and instead go to the Pyramids. The crystal merchant heavily influenced Santiago to continue his Personal Legend at a time where he was most at risk for giving up.

This story is based on a young sheepherder named Santiago, who feels very restless having a recurring dream. He has a dream every time he sleeps under a sycamore tree that grows in the ruins of a church. During the dream, a child tells him to look for a treasure at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids, feeling confused with the dream, he decided to find out its meaning and goes to a gypsy. She told him that dreams are the language of the world and that if in his dream a child showed it to him, it is because he really exists and he had to go to the pyramids of Egypt, because in that place he finds a treasure that will make him millionaire but he had to promise that he would give a tenth if he could find the treasure. Santiago was disappointed because the gypsy only told him what he already knew and even had to give him the tenth if he found it, a part of him wants to risk going to look for it and the other part wants to continue his simple life as a sheepherder.

When he left, he decided to sit and wait for the sun to be a little lower, while he waited, he started reading a book and suddenly an old man appeared who seemed to be a mysterious king in Taifa. Santiago tells him about his dream and the old man convinces him that he has managed to discover his Personal Legend. The old king tells Santiago that following his Personal Legend until he can reach it is the only true obligation of a person in life. The old man was the King of Salem and he tells Santiago to give him a tenth of his flock so he can tell him in what direction he has to go in order to find him. The next day Santiago appears in the square with a tenth of his flock, then the king looked close to his chest, when doing this, rays of light are reflected and Santiago can see that it was gold, Santiago believed in everything said the king because to have so much gold he must have been a very important person, the king gave him two stones, one black and one white, they were called Urim and Thummim. In the end, the king only told him that when you want to do something, the universe conspires so you can do it, and this is a phrase that Santiago would remember in his long journey, he told him that the place where the treasure was found was in Africa.

Santiago listens to his heart and decides to do the dangerous treasure hunt. He sells his flock of sheep and goes to Africa. After the long journey, he arrived at a port and near it was a town called Tangier, full of bandits and criminals.

While walking through the streets of this town in search of help to get to his destination, he met another man about his own age, and he told him to help him to reach his destination but they had to go buy several things before get there, so he entrusted the money he had received for his sheep because he had warned him about the danger and while Santiago was deconcentrated he ran through the streets and when Santiago saw around him, he saw the man was not there and that he had stolen his money and He had to spend the night in the street since he didn’t have money to pay a hotel or something to sleep on. The next day the young man woke up and was attended by a street vendor who offered him food and a job cleaning glasses.

After spending almost a year working for the merchant, Santiago had already collected enough money to return to Spain and buy his flock again, but before leaving the owner thanks him for all this time of good work and tells him that his dream always it had been to go to the mecca since all of his religion had to visit the mecca at least once in his life but he feared that if he traveled there it would be pointless to continue living, but Santiago remembered his personal legend and he realized that he had to follow his path in order to fulfill it, then the owner was told that if that was his personal legend he had to fulfill it. After the gratitude and the last goodbye he went to fulfill his personal legend.

Santiago had enough money to buy a camel and go into the dangerous desert, on the way he found the store in which his money received by the sheep had been stolen and he wanted to go in to see if he could find the man but he could not find it. another young man who was also heading to the desert, approached him and asked him where he would have to go to find transportation for his trip, at which point an old man approached him and told them that a caravan would soon leave for the desert, and Without thinking they went out with the old cameleer to take that caravan. At dawn they left with a group of people to the desert, on the way Santiago was distracted by seeing the desert so silent and the other young man who was called English was distracted by reading some books that he had taken.

After several days they finally arrived at an oasis, this oasis was full of palm trees and hundreds of wells, where they were attended by some inhabitants and they were housed in tents. The goal of English was to find an alchemist, and Santiago helped him find it, in the search Santiago fell madly in love with an inhabitant of this oasis, his name was Fatima, he asked about the alchemist and she told him that they stayed very away from the others, then they should be on the outskirts of the oasis, while they went towards the search of the alchemist, Santiago stayed thinking about Fatima and came to think that this should be his treasure.

Every day Santiago and Fatima were at the well to talk about their lives and in one of those conversations I told her about the treasure and her personal legend, she upon hearing it said that if that was her personal legend she had to complete it, but He insisted that his love for her was better than the treasure, she tried to explain that the women of this oasis always wait for their husbands since they go into the desert and do not know if they will return or not, then they They are used to their men not arriving.

The way around the oasis thinking about what Fatima said, but it was already night and he had to get to his tent, but he could see that hawks were flying through the desert and he thought it was a sign that the war that was happening in those moments would reach the oasis. It was where the generals of that oasis and told them about the hawks and the war then they explained that they were forbidden to come here, since in this oasis the use of weapons was forbidden but nevertheless they took precautions and told him that for every man dead would give him a quantity of gold and that if these weapons were not used with them they would be used against him.

Santiago was worried because if what he had predicted did not happen they would kill him, but on the way he met a knight, his horse neighed and he had a hawk on his shoulder, who told him that because he had revealed the hawks and he I answered that he had thought it was a sign, then the gentleman revealed that he was an alchemist and told him that if he survived tomorrow, he would go to where he lived and point out where he was. Santiago woke up worried that if there would be no war there, his legend would end there, but a few hours passed and the armed guards saw an army that entered the oasis and immediately killed them, the young man was forgiven and was rewarded with a great amount of gold coins. He remembered what the alchemist had told him and it was where he was, when the alchemist arrived he answered him and told him that he would be his guide to achieve his personal legend, he accepted and went to say goodbye to Fatima and she understood what was happening and told her that she would be waiting for his return, without further ado he left with the alchemist to finish his personal legend.

They arrived at a camp where they were received, there they asked the alchemist what he had there and he answered that it was the Elixir of the long life and the Philosopher’s Stone, the guards laughed at him and let them pass, the alchemist spoke to him a little about what alchemy was and Santiago asked him if he would teach him to turn lead into gold, and he answered no, because this would help him get only his personal legend, but they were captured by bandits and taken to the enemy camps and thought to execute them but the alchemist offered them all the money that Santiago got with the reward of the oasis generals, they accepted and the alchemist told them to give him three days so that he could become wind and they would liberate them, otherwise they would be executed. After three days Santiago was able to overcome his challenge of becoming wind and the bandit chiefs decided to release them, later they would meet a monastery there the alchemist borrowed the kitchen to perform an experiment and the monk accepted, there the alchemist took out the Elixir of the long life and the Philosopher’s Stone, he mixed them and turned the knob into gold, then broke it into four pieces and gave one to the monk, another Santiago, and one for him, the rest was given to the monk in case Santiago I will need urgently.

The alchemist before saying goodbye to Santiago told him a well-known story and then let him continue on his way, Santiago went on his way and could find the pyramids, Santiago wept with happiness and began to dig to find the tear drop that he shed. several refugees from the war and stole the piece of gold that the alchemist had given him and forced him to continue digging to see if he found more gold, but everything was in vain, at the end Santiago told them about the treasure and his personal legend and one of them told him that he had also had a dream similar to that, he dreamed that he had to go to Spain to dig in a tower to find his treasure and he said that he was not stupid enough to believe in that, so he they left and Santiago saw the pyramids with great happiness, he had already found his treasure.

Shortly after what happened in the pyramids, Santiago claimed the monk his piece of gold to be able to return to Spain, there he realized that the alchemist knew everything that was going to happen and he smiled saying: old sorcerer, you knew everything from a principle and you did not tell me anything. When he arrived in Spain he no longer brought with him his flock but a shovel to dig, there he touched thoroughly and unearthed a trunk full of gold and forgotten treasures, he lay down on the grass and felt in the desert wind, but in this he felt the war, on the contrary he felt a pleasant silence and felt that the air gave him a big kiss and said: I’m going Fatima.