The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an entrancing novel. It is about the virtuosity and genuineness of Mark Twain’s experience of the Mississippi, the richness of the language, the honesty of the characters and the expansiveness of the novel itself. Huck Finn’s rejection of civilization, his yearning for paternal love, the kindness of Ole Jim…
I believe an examiner looks for evidence of first hand reading of the author or the text in question when you attempt long answers on such writers as you have mentioned. The next thing is to have your own point of view about the author or the text’s significance. A good background reading of the work and the literary criticism pertaining to that is required if your answer is for a PG or a higher level exam like UGC NET or UPSC ICS. Questions can differ, based on summative assessment of the text like Summarize Milton’s Heroic Argument in the Paradise Lost or critical assessment
The only artist who ranks along side William Shakespeare in the galaxy of literary greats is none other than Fyodor Dosteyevsky. It is not difficult to answer this question because it is Brothers Karamazov. Constructed around a family of four brothers, all sons of Fyodor Karamazov: Alexei, the sensualist and emotional giant, Ivan, the rationalist…
Florentino Ariza’s declaration of love to Fermina Daza in Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She is the woman he has loved passionately for more than two score years. He would do anything to be with her. For her he has remained celibate. When her husband dies his passion is revived…
When we are asked to summarise a work of literature, what might be expected is to render a synopsis of the work in question, probably adding a detail here and there which might interest the listener. But to critically summarise a work of literature may be to don the robes of a critic. Obviously there…
Emotively is what you could be passionate about; what lights up your sensual feelings or your imaginative vein. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is one novel I can think about very keenly. The power of emotion in this fascinating love story is dark and deep. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a classic emotion novel….
My thoughts about Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov resurface as I read Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground. Human nature revels in his novels; revels in the candid display of monstrosity and hideousness, subterfuge and all embracing love. As a critic has remarked Dostoyevsky’s characters possess a dialogic imagination. They are very near to the…
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn according to Ernest Hemingway “All modern American Literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” The novel is a rich source to understand the American way of life in the early days of modernisation. For lovers of Nature and rivers especially, there is no better novel as…
A 29 km ride on the road leads to Nal Sarovar. A quiet, majestic lake around 20 kms in diameter, 140 kms from Anand. After taking a diversion from the main road we enter a narrow , arterial road tucked on both the sides with small hamlets. There the life of the city doesn’t trouble the populace.
I watched the movie Silas Marner starring Ben Kingsley. It made me reflect about the novel by George Eliot that I had read long ago. George Eliot’s simple story of a lost and found treasure which had been robbed from Silas Marner is a profound and moving tale about the humanism and honesty of the…