Jashan Takhar 20th Century Novel

Most people reading The Stranger for the first time might be put off by Meursault's strange behavior. He always acts outside of typical societal expectations. He has little reaction to life-changing events, like the death of his mother and Marie's marriage proposal to him. However, he snaps at specific points, like when he kills the Arab on the beach without much apparent thought. He has no regard for the consequences of his decisions and actions. He is truly a "stranger" to society. Like many other readers, I first thought Meursault was a detached sociopath and expected the book to go deeper into his mental "derangement," perhaps explaining why he was that way. However, the book mostly leaves Meursault alone, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether he is insane.  After thinking about Meursault more, I believe that Camus intended the character to be just different than most, but not in a wrong way. Maybe he isn't suppressing any feelings about his ...

     As we follow Jake Barnes through The Sun Also Rises , it becomes increasingly apparent that he never quite has his life on track. He constantly struggles with feelings of love, personal insecurity, and a general lack of tranquility. The reader can see this through specific scenes and general trends in the book. For example, Hemingway gives us a closer look at Jake's state of mind when he suddenly breaks down crying in his bedroom one night after putting off sitting alone with his thoughts. However, other factors, like the desultory manner in which he follows his peers through Spain, also contribute to the general aimlessness that attributes to his character.       He is thirty-four during the book's main events, but it still seems like he is caught in a postwar period where he has no clear idea of what to do with his life and still has intense internal turmoils that he needs to address outright. His narration style clearly favors indirectness and ...

In  Mrs. Dalloway  by Virginia Woolf, Septimus Smith is easily a standout in the book with his compelling backstory, tumultuous thought process, and the way Woolf is able to experiment with her writing style when writing from his perspective. However, his tragic death by suicide is easily the most gruesomely fascinating thing about his character. As shocking as it is, one can't help but wonder how his fate would have played out if he had received proper care instead of being misunderstood and nearly mocked for his trauma. Without downplaying Septimus's condition and experiences, one can easily argue that many of the factors that led to him taking his life were products of their time.  Septimus's short life was pre-determined when he was young. He fought in the war not because he wanted to (he would much rather enjoy reading Shakespeare and watching plays) but because it was seen as the natural duty of a man to serve his country and perhaps die heroically in the process. I...

To say the least, reading The Mezzanine was an admittedly excruciating experience. Honestly speaking, it was quite difficult for me to adjust to reading a book with this premise. A plot, meaningful characters, twists – everything you come to expect from a typical novel, it's all greatly reduced or nonexistent here. I found myself deriving very little enjoyment throughout the first third of the book. Why do I care about what this random guy has to say about milk, which happens to remind him about straws, which happen to remind him about soda cans, which happen to remind him about the entire history of Western everyday-commodity manufacturing? I wanted something to happen. Maybe he'll get in an argument with his coworker , I would think. Maybe he'll find out his dog just died . I was consistently disappointed when nothing of interest sprang up to the reader outside of his thoughts. I really had to just read Howie ramble.             After 1/3 of the ...