The Fountainhead

By: Ayn Rand

Howard Roark

Rand's stated goal in writing fiction was to portray her vision of an ideal man.The character of Howard Roark, the protagonistof The Fountainhead, was the first instance where she believed she had achieved this. Roark embodies Rand's egoistic moral ideals, especially the virtues of independence and integrity.

Peter Keating

In contrast to the individualistic Roark, Peter Keating is a conformist who bases his choices on what others want.

Dominique Francon

Dominique Francon is the heroine of The Fountainhead, described by Rand as "the woman for a man like Howard Roark". Rand described Dominique as similar to herself "in a bad mood".

Gail Wynand

Gail Wynand is a wealthy newspaper mogul. He rose from a destitute childhood in the ghettoes of New York City to control much of the city's print media.

Ellsworth Toohey

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey is Roark's antagonist. Toohey is Rand's personification of evil, the most active and self-aware villain in any of her novels. Toohey is a socialist, and represents the spirit of collectivism more generally.

Theme

Independent/Individualism

Passion

Summary

Peter Keating and Howard Roark finish architecture school and embark on their careers. Peter Keating graduates with top honors and goes to work for a hotshot firm in New York, headed by a dude named Guy Francon. Howard Roark gets tossed out on his rear and goes to work for a drunken has-been, also in New York. If you're thinking that this sounds like a prime situation for a reversal in fortune, you'd be correct.

Turns out Peter Keating is a bit of a poser and his ascent to the top of his profession involves blackmail, stealing people's work, shmoozing, causing an old dude to have a stroke, hitting on the boss's daughter, and getting Roark to do things for him. Roark, meanwhile, is a true individual, modernist designer, and his work is brilliant but unappreciated by the stupid public. Roark even gets sued for breach of contract after he refused to compromise on a building design, and he ends up broke and without clients.

Roark eventually goes to Connecticut to work in a quarry for some cash and meets Dominique Francon, the icy-blonde journalist daughter of Peter Keating's boss. Got all that? Roark and Dominique have a violent sexual encounter shortly after meeting (read more about that in the  and later embark on a secret  affair.

Dominique proceeds to attract Peter Keating, and the two end up getting married, which is a truly bad idea. Keating abandons his true love Katie Halsey in order to marry Dominique for selfish reasons. Dominique decides to wallow in her misery about how much the world sucks and marries Keating as a bizarre sort of protest against society.

While all of this is going on a critic named Ellsworth Toohey is systematically building up Keating while destroying Roark, since he's an evil communist and doesn't want bold individuals to succeed. Also, he may or may not be suffering from a massive inferiority complex and be something of a sociopath.

The architects continue to do architectural things and then Gail Wynand, media mogul and owner of The Banner newspaper, enters the scene. He basically buys Dominique from Peter Keating, giving Keating a posh commission in exchange for a divorce. Wynand then marries Dominique. Dominique continues her emotional affair with Roark and is now batting  in the husband department. Wynand and Roark actually bond and become friends, and the love triangle gets all sorts of weird.

Meanwhile, Keating turns into a loser and falls under the sway of Toohey, along with a lot of other characters, including Keating's ill-fated true love, Katie Halsey.

Finally Toohey tries to alter a building Roark designed for Keating, and Roark blows the building up in an effort to preserve his artistic integrity… or something. There's a big trial and Roark gives a big speechy speech about his philosophy and gets acquitted. If you've studied the law at all the trial won't make much sense.

Gail Wynand tries to back up his buddy Roark with his paper but Toohey sabotages him and Wynand shuts down his paper. He also grants Dominique a divorce when he learns that she really loves Roark. In the end, Roark and Dominique are married and Roark is working on a new skyscraper for Wynand.

Insight

    On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence.

•                                                              The Reader
                                                               by: Bernhard Schlink
  Characters
  
  
  Michael Berg,  A German who is first portrayed as a 15-year-old boy and is revisited at later parts of his life: when he is a researcher in legal history, divorced with one daughter, Julia. Like many of his generation, he struggles to come to terms with his country's recent history.
  
  
  Hanna Schmitz,  A former guard at Auschwitz. She is 36, illiterate and working as a tram conductor in Neustadt when she first meets 15-year-old Michael. She takes a dominant position in their relationship.
  
  
  Sophie,  A friend of Michael's when he is in school, and whom he probably has a crush on. She is almost the first person whom he tells about Hanna. When he begins his friendship with her, is when he begins to "betray" Hanna by denying her relationship with him and by cutting short his time with Hanna to be with Sophie and his other friends.
  
  
  Michael's father,  A philosophy professor who specializes in Kant and Hegel. During the Nazi era he lost his job for giving a lecture on Spinoza and had to support himself and his family by writing hiking guidebooks. He is very formal and requires his children to make appointments to see him. He is emotionally stiff and does not easily express his emotions to Michael or his three siblings, which exacerbates the difficulties Hanna creates for Michael. By the time Michael is narrating the story, his father is dead.
  
  
  Michael's mother,  Seen briefly. Michael has fond memories of her pampering him as a child, which his relationship with Hanna reawakens. A psychoanalyst he sees, tells him he should consider his mother's effect on him more, since she barely figures in his retelling of his life.
  
  
  The daughter of a Jewish woman who wrote the book about the death march from Auschwitz.  She lives in New York City when Michael visits her near the end of the story, still suffering from the loss of her own family.
  
  
  
  
       
       Summary
  
  
       Bernhard Schlink begins his novel, the reader, with a scene of the main character. Michael Berg, a 14-year-old boy, is on his way home from school when he suddenly vomits on the pavement. Hanna Schmitz, 35 years old, lives in a flat near the pavement. She takes care of Michael and brings him home to his family. On the same day, the doctor diagnoses Michael with jaundice. After his illness is nearly cured, he visits Hanna with a bouquet of flowers to thank her.
  When Michael wants to leave, Hannah asks him to wait because she has to go in the same direction and she would like his company. While she changes her clothes, Michael is secretly looking through a crack in the door. Hanna notices this and Michael runs away. A week later, he visits her again. Hanna asks him to fetch coal from the basement and Michael gets really dirty. She gives him a bath. Afterwards, Hanna and Michael sleep together for the first time, and Michael falls in love with Hanna. For both, it becomes a ritual and Michael skips the last class of school every day to wait for Hanna, who comes homes from work at 12 o’clock. Hanna asks Michael to read to her after they sleep together. She is an attentive listener. During the Easter holidays, Michael travels by train to Schwetzingen to be with Hanna. She works as a streetcar conductress. However, they get into a conflict and Michael blames himself because he feels like he offended Hanna. As they continue to celebrate the holidays together, they embark on a bike trip. One morning, Michael decides to get breakfast and writes Hanna a note. When he returns with breakfast, she is very angry because she didn’t see the note. Again, there is a conflict between them and Michael takes the blame. When the holidays are over, Michael has a new class schedule and Michael spends a lot of time with his class at the public swimming pool. He is often with Hanna, too. Once again, Hanna and Michael have sex. Later, Michael sees Hanna at the swimming pool but does not go up to her. The next day, Hanna is suddenly moved out of her apartment and disappeared. Michael wonders if it was his fault or whether he has been betrayed by Hanna. After years, Michael sees Hanna as part of his law studies in the courtroom again. She is accused of voluntarily going to the SS and working there as a guard in the concentration camps. It is revealed that she would have young girls read to her, and afterwards, they were selected for deportation. On a hike from Krakow to Auschwitz, these deported inmates slept in a church that burned down. All of the people died except a mother with her daughter because none of the guards would unlock the door. Hanna admits that she wrote a report at that time, even though she turns out later to be illiterate. Michael goes to a concentration camp to try to understand Hanna’s situation back then and to condemn her work. When Michael discovers that Hanna is illiterate, he decides to go to the supreme judge and tell him. He manages to talk to the supreme judge, but not about Hanna’s illiteracy. Hanna gets a life sentence and Michael becomes a law clerk and marries a woman named Gertrude. The married couple have a daughter named Julia. However, when Julia is five, Michael and Gertrude divorce.Hanna has already been in prison for several years when Michael decides to send Hannah books on tape. Four years later, Michael gets the first response from Hanna; she is grateful for the records. Michael never writes to Hanna.After Hanna has been in prison for 17 years, Michael gets a letter from the prison director. She writes that Hanna will likely be released in one year and asks him to take care of housing, employment, and some leisure programs for Hannah, and she requests Michael visit Hanna in prison. Michael takes care of a home and a job for Hanna; however, he does not visit her. A week before Hanna’s release, he visits her in prison and notices that “his” Hanna from past times is now an old woman. He also shows Hanna that he has no space for her in his life. On the day of her release, Hanna is found dead. She hung herself in the morning. With the director of the prison, Michael takes a look at Hanna’s cell and they find books about concentration camps and classical literature. Hanna has learned to read and write with the help of Michael’s tapes and books. She also has written a will, the money of her bank account with a total sum of 7,000 DM should be transferred to the mother and daughter from the concentration camp. This sends Michael to New York and they transfer the money to the Jewish League Against Illiteracy in Hanna’s name. The organization thanks Hanna with a letter for the donation later. Michael takes the letter and visits Hanna’s grave to leave the letter.
  
  
  Insight
  
  
       The so called novel entitle the reader written by  Bernhard Schlink, opens in post-war Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Hanna is enthralled as Michael reads to her from "The Odyssey," "Huck Finn" and "The Lady with the Little Dog." Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day and Michael is left confused and heartbroken. Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna back in his life - this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna's past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives. THE READER is a story about truth and reconciliation, about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another.
  
  
  
  
  
  
     Theme
  
  
  Accepting Responsibilities
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Setting
  
  

  Hanna's Apartment

       Hanna Schmitz lives in a furnished, working-class apartment on an upper floor in an urban tenement. The apartment is largely unremarkable although Michael Berg will remember numerous minute details about the apartment and the building even long after it is razed. Hanna's apartment door has a window through which her apartment's interior is visible. The apartment also has, at least, a kitchen and a bedroom separated by a hallway.

  The Railcar

      Hanna works as a railcar conductor for about 8 years. Michael attempts to visit Hanna on the railcar while she is working, but she ignores him and, later, blames him for ignoring her. Michael thereafter equates railcars with emotional distress and avoids riding on them for many years. The railcar is the only place that Michael and Hanna's lives intersect, however briefly, outside of the bounds, which Hanna sets on their relationship.
  Michael Berg's Home Town
    The said novel has been held in several different places. It was started in Michael Berg's home town this then develops into several other areas, where the Nazi Concentration camps were such as in the book we are able to see the repitition of Auschwitz and Hanna's home town and other war and holocaust related areas.
  
  

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

BY: JANE AUSTEN

Mr Fitzwilliam Dar  Is initially presented as the wealthy friend of Mr Bingley.

Mr Bennet  Is described in his first appearance in the book as so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character, and this ironic, sarcastic, cynical sense of humour irritates his wife.

 Mrs Bennet  Is the middle-aged wife of her social superior, Mr. Bennet, and the mother of their five daughters; Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine and Lydia Bennet is shameless, childish, frivolous, excitable, officious, indecorous, greedy and grasping, illogical, loquacious, invasive, artless, and. She is a to attacks of tremors and palpitations whenever she is. She is very much a child still, emotionally, but in an adult's body. Her main ambition in life is to marry her daughters off to wealthy men. Whether or not any such matches will give her daughters happiness is of little concern to her.

Jane Bennet  Is the eldest Bennet sister. Jane is "sugar to Elizabeth's lemonade".Jane is closest to Elizabeth, and her character is often contrasted with that of Elizabeth's. She falls in love with Charles Bingley, a rich young gentleman recently moved to Hertfordshire and a close friend of Mr Darcy. Their love is initially thwarted by Mr Darcy and Caroline Bingley.

Mary Bennet Is the only plain Bennet sister, and rather than join in some of the family activities, she mostly reads and plays music, although she is often impatient to display her accomplishments and is rather vain about them.

Catherine Bennet Is the fourth daughter at 17 years old. Though older than Lydia, she is her shadow and she follows her in pursuits of the 'Officers' of the regiment. She appears but little, although she is often portrayed as envious of Lydia and also a "silly" young woman. However, it is said that she has improved by the end of the novel.

Lydia Bennet Is the youngest Bennet sister, aged 15 when the novel begins. She is frivolous and headstrong. Her main activity in life is socializing, especially flirting with the officers of the militia.

Charles Bingley Is a handsome, affable, amiable, good-natured and wealthy young gentleman of 23-years-old at the beginning of the novel, who leases Netherfield Park, an estate 3 miles from Longbourn, with the hopes of purchasing it.

Caroline Bingley Is thevainglorious, snobbish sister of Charles Bingley.

George Wickham Has been acquainted with Mr Darcy since infancy, being the son of Mr Darcy's father's steward.

William Collins

Aged 25 years old as the novel begins, is Mr Bennet's distant second cousin, a clergyman, and the current heir presumptive to his estate of Longbourn House. His physical appearance is described as being "tall, heavy looking young man of five and twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal".

Lady Catherine de Bourgh Lady Catherine confronts Elizabeth about Darcy, on the title page of the first illustrated edition. This is the other of the first two illustrations of the novel.

Mr and Mrs Gardiner

Edward Gardiner is Mrs Bennet's brother and a successful tradesman of sensible and gentlemanly character.

Georgiana Darcy Is Mr Darcy's quiet, amiable younger sister and aged barely 16-years-old when the story begins.

Charlotte Lucas Is Elizabeth's friend who, at 27 years old, fears becoming a burden to her family and therefore agrees to marry Mr Collins, whom she does not love and who had merely a  days previously proposed to Elizabeth, to gain financial security.

Louisa Hurst Is the older sister to Caroline Bingley and Charles Bingley, and wife of Mr Hurst, coming into the marriage with a £20,000 dowry £1000 per annum from her £20,000 inheritance.

Mr Hurst Is the husband of Louisa Hurst, and thus the brother in law of Charles Bingley and Caroline Bingley. He is described as 'a man of more fashion than fortune'

Mr and Mrs Philips Is an attorney and has a practice in and lives in Meryton which he inherited from his late father-in-law, having formerly been one of his law clerks before marrying his boss's daughter.

Summary

     In the said novel that is entitled the pride and prejudice, Bennet family consists of five daughters. The elder of the girls, Jane and Elizabeth, are intelligent, rational young women; the younger daughters, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, are thoughtless and silly. Mr Bennet is an aloof father watching rather than guiding his daughters. Mrs Bennet is as foolish as her younger children. The novel opens with Mrs Bennet trying to persuade Mr Bennet to visit an eligible bachelor, Mr Bingley, who has arrived in the neighborhood. After some verbal sparring with Mr Bennet baiting his wife, it transpires that this visit has taken place at Netherfield. The visit is followed by an invitation to a ball at the local assembly rooms that the whole neighborhood will attend. At the ball, Mr Bingley is open and cheerful, popular with all the guests, and appears to be very attracted to the beautiful Miss Bennet. His friend, MC Dercy is reputed to be twice as wealthy; however, he is haughty and aloof. He declines to dance with Elizabeth suggesting that she is not pretty enough to tempt him.She finds this amusing and jokes about the statement with her friends. Miss Jane Bennet also attracts the attention of Mr Bingley's sister Caroline, who invites her to visit. Jane visits Miss Bingley and is caught in a rain shower on the way, catching a serious cold. Elizabeth, out of genuine concern for her sister's well being, visits her sister there. This is the point at which Darcy begins to see the attraction of Elizabeth, and Miss Bingley is shown to be jealous of Elizabeth since she wants to marry Darcy herself. Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr Bennet and heir to the Longbourn estate, visits the Bennet family. He is a pompous and obsequious clergyman because he expects each of the Bennet girls to wish to marry him due to his inheritance. He plans to propose to Elizabeth over Jane as he is led to believe Jane is taken. Elizabeth and her family meet the dashing and charming Mr Wickham who singles out Elizabeth and tells her a story of the hardship that Mr Darcy has caused him by depriving him of a living promised to him by Mr Darcy's late father. Elizabeth's dislike of Mr Darcy is confirmed. At a ball at which Mr Wickham is not present, Elizabeth dances with Mr Darcy rather against her will. Other than Jane and Elizabeth, all the members of the Bennet family show their lack of decorum. Mrs Bennet states loudly that she expects Jane and Bingley to become engaged and each member of the family exposes the whole to ridicule. The following morning, Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She rejects him to the fury of her mother and the relief of her father. They receive news that the Bingleys are leaving for London, and that Mr Collins has proposed to Charlotte Lucas, a sensible lady and Elizabeth's friend. She is slightly older and is grateful to receive a proposal that will guarantee her a home. Elizabeth is aghast at such pragmatism in matters of love. Jane goes to visit her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner at an unfashionable address in London. Miss Bingley clearly does not want to continue the friendship and Jane is upset though very composed. In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are frequently invited to Rosings Park, the imposing home of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Lady Catherine is Mr Darcy's aunt and extremely wealthy. She expects Mr Darcy to marry her daughter. Mr Darcy and his cousin, Colonel FitzWilliam, visit Lady Catherine. Colonel FitzWilliam tells Elizabeth how Mr Darcy managed to save a friend from a bad match by convincing the friend of the lady's indifference. Elizabeth is horrified at Darcy's involvement in an affair which has caused her sister so much pain. Mr Darcy, however, has fallen in love with Elizabeth and proposes to her. She rejects him, stating that she could not love a man who has caused her sister such unhappiness, and accuses him of treating Mr Wickham unjustly.       Mr Darcy accuses her family of wanting propriety and suggests he has been kinder to Bingley than himself. Both are furious and they part barely speaking.After an agonizing wait, Mr Wickham is persuaded to marry Lydia with only the payment of debts required. With some degree of decency restored, Lydia visits Elizabeth and tells her that Mr Darcy was at the wedding. Mrs Gardiner informs Elizabeth that it is Mr Darcy who has made the match and hints that he may have a motive for doing so. At this point, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy return to Netherfield. Bingley proposes to Jane and is accepted, much to the delight of all. Lady Catherine visits Elizabeth under the impression that she is going to marry Mr Darcy, Elizabeth refuses to deny this claim and Lady Catherine leaves outraged by her perceived insolence. Darcy and Elizabeth go for a walk together and they become engaged. Elizabeth then has to convince her father that she is not marrying for money, and it is only after she speaks about Mr Darcy's true worth that he is happy about the wedding.

Theme

Wealth, is the main theme of this novel for me hence the concept in the said novel shows the very good social status when do you have a enough wealth.

Setting

The said novel entitled Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen happen with in the places in England,British places as well as it covers some places in Europe such as united kingdom.

Insight

  Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story charts the emotional development of the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgements and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, and marriage and money in the British Regency.

The Aeneid

The Aeneid

  by: Virgil     

Characters in the Aeneid

Aeneas -  The protagonist of the Aeneid. Aeneas is a survivor of the siege of Troy, a city on the coast of Asia Minor. His defining characteristic is piety, a respect for the will of the gods. He is a fearsome warrior and a leader able to motivate his men in the face of adversity, but also a man capable of great compassion and sorrow. His destiny is to found the Roman race in Italy and he subordinates all other concerns to this mission. The Aeneid is about his journey from Troy to Italy, which enables him to fulfill his fate.

Dido -  The queen of Carthage, a city in northern Africa, in what is now Tunisia, and lover of Aeneas. Dido left the land of Tyre when her husband was murdered by Pygmalion, her brother. She and her city are strong, but she becomes an unfortunate pawn of the gods in their struggle for Aeneas’s destiny. Her love for Aeneas proves to be her downfall. After he abandons her, she constructs a funeral pyre and stabs herself upon it with Aeneas’s sword.

Turnus -  The ruler of the Rutulians in Italy. Turnus is Aeneas’s major antagonist among mortals. He is Lavinia’s leading suitor until Aeneas arrives. This rivalry incites him to wage war against the Trojans, despite Latinus’s willingness to allow the Trojans to settle in Latium and Turnus’s understanding that he cannot successfully defy fate. He is brash and fearless, a capable soldier who values his honor over his life.

Ascanius -  Aeneas’s young son by his first wife, Creusa. Ascanius is most important as a symbol of Aeneas’s destiny his future founding of the Roman race. Though still a child, Ascanius has several opportunities over the course of the epic to display his bravery and leadership. He leads a procession of boys on horseback during the games of Book V and he helps to defend the Trojan camp from Turnus’s attack while his father is away.

Anchises -  Aeneas’s father, and a symbol of Aeneas’s Trojan heritage. Although Anchises dies during the journey from Troy to Italy, he continues in spirit to help his son fulfill fate’s decrees, especially by guiding Aeneas through the underworld and showing him what fate has in store for his descendants.

Creusa -  Aeneas’s wife at Troy, and the mother of Ascanius. Creusa is lost and killed as her family attempts to flee the city, but tells Aeneas he will find a new wife at his new home.

Sinon -  The Greek youth who pretends to have been left behind at the end of the Trojan War. Sinon persuades the Trojans to take in the wooden horse as an offering to Minerva, then lets out the warriors trapped inside the horse’s belly.

Latinus -  The king of the Latins, the people of what is now central Italy, around the Tiber River. Latinus allows Aeneas into his kingdom and encourages him to become a suitor of Lavinia, his daughter, causing resentment and eventually war among his subjects. He respects the gods and fate, but does not hold strict command over his people.

Lavinia -  Latinus’s daughter and a symbol of Latium in general. Lavinia’s character is not developed in the poem; she is important only as the object of the Trojan-Latin struggle. The question of who will marry Lavinia Turnus or Aeneas becomes key to future relations between the Latins and the Trojans and therefore the Aeneid’s entire historical scheme.

Amata -  Queen of Laurentum and wife of Latinus. Amata opposes the marriage of Lavinia, her daughter, to Aeneas and remains loyal throughout to Turnus, Lavinia’s original suitor. Amata kills herself once it is clear that Aeneas is destined to win.

Evander -  King of Pallanteum and father of Pallas. Evander is a sworn enemy of the Latins, and Aeneas befriends him and secures his assistance in the battles against Turnus.

Pallas -  Son of Evander, whom Evander entrusts to Aeneas’s care and tutelage. Pallas eventually dies in battle at the hands of Turnus, causing Aeneas and Evander great grief. To avenge Pallas’s death, Aeneas finally slays Turnus, dismissing an initial impulse to spare him.

Drancës -  A Latin leader who desires an end to the Trojan-Latin struggle. Drancës questions the validity of Turnus’s motives at the council of the Latins, infuriating Turnus.

Camilla -  The leader of the Volscians, a race of warrior maidens. Camilla is perhaps the only strong mortal female character in the epic.

Juturna -  Turnus’s sister. Juno provokes Juturna into inducing a full-scale battle between the Latins and the Trojans by disguising herself as an officer and goading the Latins after a treaty has already been reached.

Achates -  A Trojan and a personal friend of Aeneas.

Gods and Goddesses

Juno -  The queen of the gods, the wife and sister of Jupiter, and the daughter of Saturn. Juno  hates the Trojans because of the Trojan Paris’s judgment against her in a beauty contest. She is also a patron of Carthage and knows that Aeneas’s Roman descendants are destined to destroy Carthage. She takes out her anger on Aeneas throughout the epic, and in her wrath acts as his primary divine antagonist.

Venus -  The goddess of love and the mother of Aeneas. Venus is a benefactor of the Trojans. She helps her son whenever Juno tries to hurt him, causing conflict among the gods. She is also referred to as Cytherea, after Cythera, the island where she was born and where her shrine is located.

Jupiter -  The king of the gods, and the son of Saturn. While the gods often struggle against one another in battles of will, Jupiter’s will reigns supreme and becomes identified with the more impersonal force of fate. Therefore, Jupiter directs the general progress of Aeneas’s destiny, ensuring that Aeneas is never permanently thrown off his course toward Italy. Jupiter’s demeanor is controlled and levelheaded compared to the volatility of Juno and Venus.

Neptune -  God of the sea, and generally an ally of Venus and Aeneas. Neptune  calms the storm that opens the epic and conducts Aeneas safely on the last leg of his voyage.

Mercury -  The messenger god. The other gods often send Mercury on errands to Aeneas.

Aeolus -  The god of the winds, enlisted to aid Juno in creating bad weather for the Trojans in Book I.

Cupid -  A son of Venus and the god of erotic desire. In Book I, Cupid  disguises himself as Ascanius, Aeneas’s son, and causes Dido to fall in love with Aeneas.

Allecto -  One of the Furies, or deities who avenge sins, sent by Juno in Book VII to incite the Latin people to war against the Trojans.

Vulcan -  God of fire and the forge, and husband of Venus. Venus urges Vulcan to craft a superior set of arms for Aeneas, and the gift serves Aeneas well in his battle with Turnus.

Tiberinus -  The river god associated with the Tiber River, where Rome will eventually be built. At Tiberinus’s suggestion, Aeneas travels upriver to make allies of the Arcadians.

Saturn -  The father of the gods. Saturn  was king of Olympus until his son Jupiter overthrew him.

Minerva -  The goddess who protects the Greeks during the Trojan War and helps them conquer Troy. Like Juno, Minerva is motivated against the Trojans by the Trojan Paris’s judgment that Venus was the most beautiful among goddesses.

Apollo -  A son of Jupiter and god of the sun. Apollo was born at Delos and helps the Trojans in their voyage when they stop there. Because he is often portrayed as an archer, many characters invoke his name before they fire a shaft in battle.

Summary

     On the Mediterranean Sea, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans flee from their home city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They sail for Italy, where Aeneas is destined to found Rome. As they near their destination, a fierce storm throws them off course and lands them in Carthage. Dido, Carthage’s founder and queen, welcomes them. Aeneas relates to Dido the long and painful story of his group’s travels thus far.

Aeneas tells of the sack of Troy that ended the Trojan War after ten years of Greek siege. In the final campaign, the Trojans were tricked when they accepted into their city walls a wooden horse that, unbeknownst to them, harbored several Greek soldiers in its hollow belly. He tells how he escaped the burning city with his father, Anchises; his son, Ascanius; and the hearth gods that represent their fallen city. Assured by the gods that a glorious future awaited him in Italy, he set sail with a fleet containing the surviving citizens of Troy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their journey. Twice they attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens and plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed them, but they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly. Finally, after the loss of Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they made their way to Carthage.

     Impressed by Aeneas’s exploits and sympathetic to his suffering, Dido, a Phoenician princess who fled her home and founded Carthage after her brother murdered her husband, falls in love with Aeneas. They live together as lovers for a period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his duty to found a new city. He determines to set sail once again. Dido is devastated by his departure, and kills herself by ordering a huge pyre to be built with Aeneas’s castaway possessions, climbing upon it, and stabbing herself with the sword Aeneas leaves behind.

     As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead Anchises. The women, tired of the voyage, begin to burn the ships, but a downpour puts the fires out. Some of the travel-weary stay behind, while Aeneas, reinvigorated after his father visits him in a dream, takes the rest on toward Italy. Once there, Aeneas descends into the underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, to visit his father. He is shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of Rome, which helps him to understand the importance of his mission. Aeneas returns from the underworld, and the Trojans continue up the coast to the region of Latium.

     The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins peacefully. King Latinus, the Italian ruler, extends his hospitality, hoping that Aeneas will prove to be the foreigner whom, according to a prophecy, his daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. But Latinus’s wife, Amata, has other ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor. Amata and Turnus cultivate enmity toward the newly arrived Trojans. Meanwhile, Ascanius hunts a stag that was a pet of the local herdsmen. A fight breaks out, and several people are killed. Turnus, riding this current of anger, begins a war.

     Aeneas, at the suggestion of the river god Tiberinus, sails north up the Tiber to seek military support among the neighboring tribes. During this voyage, his mother, Venus, descends to give him a new set of weapons, wrought by Vulcan. While the Trojan leader is away, Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his countrymen embroiled in battle. Pallas, the son of Aeneas’s new ally Evander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies into a violent fury, and many more are slain by the day’s end.

     The two sides agree to a truce so that they can bury the dead, and the Latin leaders discuss whether to continue the battle. They decide to spare any further unnecessary carnage by proposing a hand-to-hand duel between Aeneas and Turnus. When the two leaders face off, however, the other men begin to quarrel, and full-scale battle resumes. Aeneas is wounded in the thigh, but eventually the Trojans threaten the enemy city. Turnus rushes out to meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas nearly spares Turnus but, remembering the slain Pallas, slays him instead.

Setting

  setting (time)

In the aftermath of the Trojan War, about 1000 B.C.

  setting (place)  · 

The Mediterranean, including the north coast of Asia Minor, Carthage Italy                              

   

Theme

                                  The primacy of fate

                                  The sufferings of wanderers

                                  The glory of Rome

                                  Prophecies and predictions

                                                                 

                                                               Insight

   

     Virgil wrote the Aeneid during what is known as the Golden Age of the Roman Empire, under the auspices of Rome’s first emperor, Caesar Augustus. Virgil’s purpose was to write a myth of Rome’s origins that would emphasize the grandeur and legitimize the success of an empire that had conquered most of the known world. The Aeneid steadily points toward this already realized cultural pinnacle; Aeneas even justifies his settlement in Latium in the same manner that the empire justified its settlement in numerous other foreign territories. Virgil works backward, connecting the political and social situation of his own day with the inherited tradition of the Greek gods and heroes, to show the former as historically derived from the latter. Order and good government triumph emphatically over the Italian peoples, whose world prior to the Trojans’ arrival is characterized as a primitive existence of war, chaos, and emotional irrationality. By contrast, the empire under Augustus was generally a world of peace, order, and emotional stability.

    

     Prophecy and prediction take many forms in the Aeneid, including dreams, visitations from the dead, mysterious signs and omens, and direct visitations of the gods or their divine messengers. These windows onto the future orient mortal characters toward fate as they try to glean, sometimes clearly and sometimes dimly, what is to come. Virgil’s audience, however, hears these predictions with the advantage of hindsight, looking backward to observe the realization of an already accomplished fate. As observers who know about the future, the audience is in the same position as the gods, and the tension between the audience’s and the characters’ perspectives therefore emulates the difference between the position of mortals and that of gods.

The Inferno

The Inferno 

By: Dante Alighiere

Character List

Dante - The author and protagonist of Inferno, the focus of all action and interaction with other characters. Because Dante chose to present his fictional poem as a record of events that actually happened to him, a wide gulf between Dante the poet and Dante the character pervades the poem. For instance, Dante the poet often portrays Dante the character as compassionate and sympathetic at the sight of suffering sinners, but Dante the poet chose to place them in Hell and devised their suffering. As a result, if Dante the character is at all representative of Dante the poet, he is a very simplified version: sympathetic, somewhat fearful of danger, and confused both morally and intellectually by his experience in Hell. As the poem progresses, Dante the character gradually learns to abandon his sympathy and adopt a more pitiless attitude toward the punishment of sinners, which he views as merely a reflection of divine justice.

Virgil - Dante’s guide through the depths of Hell. Historically, Virgil lived in the first century before Christ in what is now northern Italy. Scholars consider him the greatest of the Latin poets. His masterpiece, the Aeneid, tells the story of how Aeneas, along with fellow survivors of the defeat of Troy, came to found Rome. The shade  of Virgil that appears in Inferno has been condemned to an eternity in Hell because he lived prior to Christ’s appearance on Earth . Nonetheless, Virgil has now received orders to lead Dante through Hell on his spiritual journey. Virgil proves a wise, resourceful, and commanding presence, but he often seems helpless to protect Dante from the true dangers of Hell. Critics generally consider Virgil an allegorical representation of human reason both in its immense power and in its inferiority to faith in God.

Beatrice - One of the blessed in Heaven, Beatrice aids Dante’s journey by asking an angel to find Virgil and bid him guide Dante through Hell. Like Dante and VigrilBeatrice corresponds to a historical personage. Although the details of her life remain uncertain, we know that Dante fell passionately in love with her as a young man and never fell out of it. She has a limited role in Inferno but becomes more prominent in Purgatorio and Paradiso. In fact, Dante’s entire imaginary journey throughout the afterlife aims, in part, to find Beatrice, whom he has lost on Earth because of her early death. Critics generally view Beatrice as an allegorical representation of spiritual love.

Charon - A figure that Dante appropriates from Greek mythology, Charon is an old man who ferries souls across the river Acheron to Hell.

Paolo and Francesca da Rimini - A pair of lovers condemned to the Second Circle of Hell for an adulterous love affair that they began after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.

Lucifer - The prince of Hell, also referred to as Dis. Lucifer resides at the bottom of the Ninth (and final) Circle of Hell, beneath the Earth’s surface, with his body jutting through the planet’s center. An enormous giant, he has three faces but does not speak; his three mouths are busy chewing three of history’s greatest traitors: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and Cassius and Brutus, the betrayers of Julius Caesar.

Minos - The king of Crete in Greek mythology, Minos is portrayed by Dante as a giant beast who stands at the Second Circle of Hell, deciding where the souls of sinners shall be sent for torment. Upon hearing a given sinner’s confession, Minos curls his tail around himself a specific number of times to represent the circle of Hell to which the soul should be consigned.

Pope Boniface VIII - A notoriously corrupt pope who reigned from 1294 to 1303, Boniface made a concerted attempt to increase the political might of the Catholic Church and was thus a political enemy of Dante, who advocated a separation of church and state.

Farinata -  A Ghibelline political leader from Dante’s era who resides among the Heretics in the Sixth Circle of Hell. Farinata is doomed to continue his intense obsession with Florentine politics, which he is now helpless to affect.

Phlegyas -  The boatman who rows Dante and Virgil across the river Styx.

Filippo Argenti -  A Black Guelph, a political enemy of Dante who is now in the Fifth Circle of Hell. Argenti resides among the Wrathful in the river Styx.

Nessus -  The Centaur (half man and half horse) who carries Dante through the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell.

Pier della Vigna -  A former advisor to Emperor Frederick II, della Vigna committed suicide when he fell into disfavor at the court. He now must spend eternity in the form of a tree.

Geryon -  The massive serpentine monster that transports Dante and Virgil from the Seventh to the Eighth Circle of Hell.

Malacoda -  The leader of the Malabranche, the demons who guard the Fifth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell. Malacoda intentionally furnishes Virgil and Dante with erroneous directions.

Vanni Fucci -  A thief punished in the Seventh Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell who prophesies the defeat of the White Guelphs. A defiant soul, Fucci curses God and aims an obscene gesture at Him before Dante journeys on.

Ulysses -  The great hero of the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ulysses was a bold and cunning man who is now imprisoned in the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell among those guilty of Spiritual Theft.

Guido da Montefeltro -  An advisor to Pope Boniface VIII, da Montefeltro was promised anticipatory absolution—forgiveness for a sin given prior to the perpetration of the sin itself. Da Montefeltro now suffers in Hell, since absolution cannot be gained without repentance and it is impossible to repent a sin before committing it.

Antaeus -  The giant who transports Dante and Virgil from the Eighth to the Ninth Circle of Hell. 

Count Ugolino -  A traitor condemned to the Second Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Ugolino gnaws on the head of another damned traitor, Archbishop Ruggieri. When Ruggieri imprisoned Ugolino and his sons, denying them food, Ugolino was driven to eat the corpses of his starved sons.

Fra Alberigo and Branca d’Oria -  Sinners condemned to the Third Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Fra Alberigo and Branca d’Oria are unlike the other sinners Dante encounters: their crimes were deemed to be so great that devils snatched their souls from their living bodies; thus, their souls reside in Hell while their bodies live on, now guided and possessed by demons.

Summary

     Inferno opens on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300. Traveling through a dark wood, Dante has lost his path and now wanders fearfully through the forest. The sun shines down on a mountain above him, and he attempts to climb up to it but finds his way blocked by three beasts a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Frightened and helpless, Dante returns to the dark wood. Here he encounters the ghost of Virgil, the great Roman poet, who has come to guide Dante back to his path, to the top of the mountain. Virgil says that their path will take them through Hell and that they will eventually reach Heaven, where Dante’s beloved Beatrice awaits. He adds that it was Beatrice, along with two other holy women, who, seeing Dante lost in the wood, sent Virgil to guide him.

Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell, marked by the haunting inscription “abandon all hope, you who enter here” They enter the outlying region of Hell, the Ante-Inferno, where the souls who in life could not commit to either good or evil now must run in a futile chase after a blank banner, day after day, while hornets bite them and worms lap their blood. Dante witnesses their suffering with repugnance and pity. The ferryman Charon then takes him and his guide across the river Acheron, the real border of Hell. The First Circle of Hell, Limbo, houses pagans, including Virgil and many of the other great writers and poets of antiquity, who died without knowing of Christ. After meeting Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, Dante continues into the Second Circle of Hell, reserved for the sin of Lust. At the border of the Second Circle, the monster Minos lurks, assigning condemned souls to their punishments. He curls his tail around himself a certain number of times, indicating the number of the circle to which the soul must go. Inside the Second Circle, Dante watches as the souls of the Lustful swirl about in a terrible storm; Dante meets Francesca, who tells him the story of her doomed love affair with Paolo da Rimini, her husband’s brother; the relationship has landed both in Hell.

In the Third Circle of Hell, the Gluttonous must lie in mud and endure a rain of filth and excrement. In the Fourth Circle, the Avaricious and the Prodigal are made to charge at one another with giant boulders. The Fifth Circle of Hell contains the river Styx, a swampy, fetid cesspool in which the Wrathful spend eternity struggling with one another; the Sullen lie bound beneath the Styx’s waters, choking on the mud. Dante glimpses Filippo Argenti, a former political enemy of his, and watches in delight as other souls tear the man to pieces.

Virgil and Dante next proceed to the walls of the city of Dis, a city contained within the larger region of Hell. The demons who guard the gates refuse to open them for Virgil, and an angelic messenger arrives from Heaven to force the gates open before Dante. The Sixth Circle of Hell houses the Heretics, and there Dante encounters a rival political leader named Farinata. A deep valley leads into the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who were violent toward others spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. Virgil and Dante meet a group of Centaurs, creatures who are half man, half horse. One of them, Nessus, takes them into the Second Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where they encounter those who were violent toward themselves. These souls must endure eternity in the form of trees. Dante there speaks with Pier della Vigna. Going deeper into the Seventh Circle of Hell, the travelers find those who were violent toward God (the Blasphemers); Dante meets his old patron, Brunetto Latini, walking among the souls of those who were violent toward Nature on a desert of burning sand. They also encounter the Usurers, those who were violent toward Art.

The monster Geryon transports Virgil and Dante across a great abyss to the Eighth Circle of Hell, known as Malebolge, or “evil pockets” the term refers to the circle’s division into various pockets separated by great folds of earth. In the First Pouch, the Panderers and the Seducers receive lashings from whips; in the second, the Flatterers must lie in a river of human feces. The Simoniacs in the Third Pouch hang upside down in baptismal fonts while their feet burn with fire. In the Fourth Pouch are the Astrologists or Diviners, forced to walk with their heads on backward, a sight that moves Dante to great pity. In the Fifth Pouch, the Barrators steep in pitch while demons tear them apart. The Hypocrites in the Sixth Pouch must forever walk in circles, wearing heavy robes made of lead. Caiphas, the priest who confirmed Jesus’ death sentence, lies crucified on the ground; the other sinners tread on him as they walk. In the horrifying Seventh Pouch, the Thieves sit trapped in a pit of vipers, becoming vipers themselves when bitten; to regain their form, they must bite another thief in turn.

In the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell, Dante speaks to Ulysses, the great hero of Homer’s epics, now doomed to an eternity among those guilty of Spiritual Theft for his role in executing the ruse of the Trojan Horse. In the Ninth Pouch, the souls of Sowers of Scandal and Schism walk in a circle, constantly afflicted by wounds that open and close repeatedly. In the Tenth Pouch, the Falsifiers suffer from horrible plagues and diseases.

Virgil and Dante proceed to the Ninth Circle of Hell through the Giants’ Well, which leads to a massive drop to Cocytus, a great frozen lake. The giant Antaeus picks Virgil and Dante up and sets them down at the bottom of the well, in the lowest region of Hell. In Caina, the First Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, those who betrayed their kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake’s ice. In Antenora, the Second Ring, those who betrayed their country and party stand frozen up to their heads; here Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity gnawing on the head of the man who imprisoned him in life. In Ptolomea, the Third Ring, those who betrayed their guests spend eternity lying on their backs in the frozen lake, their tears making blocks of ice over their eyes. Dante next follows Virgil into Judecca, the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell and the lowest depth. Here, those who betrayed their benefactors spend eternity in complete icy submersion.

A huge, mist-shrouded form lurks ahead, and Dante approaches it. It is the three-headed giant Lucifer, plunged waist-deep into the ice. His body pierces the center of the Earth, where he fell when God hurled him down from Heaven. Each of Lucifer’s mouths chews one of history’s three greatest sinners: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and Cassius and Brutus, the betrayers of Julius Caesar. Virgil leads Dante on a climb down Lucifer’s massive form, holding on to his frozen tufts of hair. Eventually, the poets reach the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and travel from there out of Hell and back onto Earth. They emerge from Hell on Easter morning, just before sunrise.

SeTTING

     Say that the inferno wins the competition for coolest setting of all time. hands down. not just because it’s hell, the most intense of all places, but because it’s dante’s hell. the whole idea springs from his creative genius. in other words, he makes it all up. theologians before thought of hell as some abstract fiery place underground, dante gives us all the gritty details.  somewhere in the shady woods of florence, italy. on mount purgatory in the southern hemisphere. theoretically speaking, you could roll out of bed, book a flight to italy, wander in the woods, and find the hell mouth. that’s how specific dante gets. 

 THEME

      The perfection of GOD’S Justice

              Evil as the contradiction of GOD’S will 

                    Storytelling as a way to achieve immortality

INSIGHT

     In the novel that was written by the author named Dante Alighiere, he simply emphasized that the novel plays with in the characters that perform some heavy role  where in the impact of the main concept of the novel to the reader is about the perfection of God's justice to every thing and much more to all the people ha made in this world, in the matter of fact the so called novel shows that God is fear to everybody, God judge us through the actions and things that we have in every journey of our life, furthermore the said novel has came up with the so called determining those people who was really contradicting to Gods will,which is for the betterment of everybody, the character in the said novel that served as the betrayer was Lucifer, interrelating it in to real life situations was liked Judas as well who also betrayed Jesus Christ, on the other hand Cassius and Brutus who betrayed caesar, as what the novel's concept conveys, the betrayers will be judge by God and will be punished through putting them to hell, The novel entitled the Inferno by Dante Alighiere is quite interesting this all because it shows the God,s love to us as long as long as we follow his commandments for our betterment.