Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment, novel by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first

published in 1866. His first masterpiece, the novel is a psychological analysis of the
poor former student Raskolnikov, whose theory that he is an extraordinary person
able to take on the spiritual responsibility of using evil means to achieve
humanitarian ends leads him to murder. The act produces nightmarish guilt in
Raskolnikov. The story is one of the finest studies of the psychopathology of guilt
written in any language.
Raskolnikov, a former student, lives in poverty and chaos in St. Petersburg.
He decides—through contradictory theories, including utilitarian morality and the
belief that extraordinary people have the “right to transgress”—to murder Alyona
Ivanovna, an elderly pawnbroker. Alyona’s half-sister, Lizaveta, arrives while he is
rifling through Alyona’s possessions, and he kills her too. In the meantime he
befriends an alcoholic man, Marmeladov, whose daughter Sonya has been forced
into prostitution to support the family. An old friend, Razumikhin, also enters his
life, concerned by his aberrant behaviour. In addition, Raskolnikov’s sister, Dunya,
who has left her job as a governess for Svidrigailov because of his improper
advances toward her, arrives in St. Petersburg with their mother. Dunya intends to
marry a man named Luzhin in order to improve their financial and social position.

The narrative follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov’s emotions and elaborates
his struggle with his conscience and the tightening noose of suspicion. He is ill
through most of the story, and he angrily rejects his family’s and Razumikhin’s
attempts to help him. When Marmeladov is run over by a carriage and dies,
Raskolnikov gives Sonya and the family money for his funeral. He forbids Dunya to
marry the pompous Luzhin, who offends Dunya to the point that she breaks off the
engagement. Raskolnikov repeatedly visits Sonya, but he behaves in such an
unhinged manner that she is frightened. When it seems that Porfiry, who is
investigating the murder, is on the point of charging Raskolnikov, another man
confesses. At a memorial dinner for Marmeladov, Luzhin falsely accuses Sonya of
stealing from him, and Raskolnikov explains why he would do such a thing. Later
he tells Sonya that he murdered the two women. Svidrigailov overhears the
confession and subsequently uses that knowledge to try to blackmail Dunya into
accepting him, but, when it becomes clear that she will never love him, he kills
himself.
At last Raskolnikov turns himself in. He is sentenced to eight years of hard labour
in Siberia. Sonya follows him to Siberia and visits him at every opportunity. Dunya
marries Razumikhin. Raskolnikov does not repent for the murders and continues to
emotionally shut out Sonya and the other prisoners. However, after an illness, he at
last comes to the realization that happiness cannot be achieved by a reasoned plan
of existence but must be earned by suffering. He then is able to accept and return
Sonya’s love.

Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary, novel by Gustave Flaubert, serialized in the Revue de
Paris in 1856 and then published in two volumes the following year. Flaubert
transformed a commonplace story of adultery into an enduring work of profound
humanity. Madame Bovary is considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, and, according to
some, it ushered in a new age of realism in literature.
Madame Bovary tells the bleak story of a marriage that ends in tragedy.
Charles Bovary, a good-hearted but dull and unambitious doctor with a meagre
practice, marries Emma, a beautiful farm girl raised in a convent. Although she
anticipates marriage as a life of adventure, she soon finds that her only excitement
derives from the flights of fancy she takes while reading
sentimental romantic novels. She grows increasingly bored and unhappy with her
middle-class existence, and even the birth of their daughter, Berthe, brings Emma
little joy.

Grasping for idealized intimacy, Emma begins to act out her romantic
fantasies and embarks on an ultimately disastrous love affair with Rodolphe, a local
landowner. She makes enthusiastic plans for them to run away together, but
Rodolphe has grown tired of her and ends the relationship. A shocked Emma
develops brain fever and is bedridden for more than a month. She later takes up with
Léon, a former acquaintance, and her life becomes increasingly chaotic. She
embraces abstractions—passion, happiness—and ignores material reality itself, as
symbolized by money. She is utterly incapable of distinguishing between her
romantic ideals and the harsh realities of her life even as her interest in Léon wanes.
Her debts having spun out of control, she begs for money, but all turn her down,
including Léon and Rodolphe. With seemingly nowhere to turn and on the verge of
financial ruin and public disclosure of her private life, Emma swallows arsenic and
dies a painful death.

A grief-stricken Charles, who has been blindly unaware of Emma’s affairs,

remains devoted to his deceased wife even as he struggles to pay her debts. After
discovering love letters from Rodolphe and Léon, he becomes increasingly
despondent but blames Emma’s affairs on fate. Shortly thereafter he dies, and Berthe
ultimately ends up working at a cotton factory.

The Mother

Gorky wrote the novel on a trip to the United States in 1906. The political
agenda behind the novel was clear. In 1905, after the defeat of Russia's first
revolution, Gorky tried to raise the spirit of the proletarian movement by conveying
the political agenda among the readers through his work. He was trying to raise spirit
among the revolutionaries to battle the defeatist mood.[2]

Gorky was personally connected to the novel as it is based on real life events,
revolving around Anna Zalomova and her son Pyotr Zalomov. Gorky, being a distant
relative of Anna Zalomova who visited Gorky's family when he was a child, had a
deeper connection to the story. The event took place during a May Day
demonstration in Sormovo in 1902. The shipbuilding town of Sormovo was near
Gorky's native town, Nizhny Novgorod, where after the arrest of Piotr Zalomov by
tsarist police, his mother, Anna Zalomova followed him into revolutionary
activity.[2][3]

The novel was first published by Appleton's Magazine in the US and later by
Ivan Ladyzhnikov Publishers in Germany. In Russia, it was published legally only
after the February Revolution because of the Tsarist censorship.

In his novel, Gorky portrays the life of a woman who works in a Russian
factory doing hard manual labour and combating poverty and hunger, among other
hardships. Pelageya Nilovna Vlasova is the real protagonist; her husband, a heavy
drunkard, physically assaults her and leaves all the responsibility for raising their
son, Pavel Vlasov, to her, but unexpectedly dies. Pavel noticeably begins to emulate
his father in his drunkenness and stammer, but suddenly becomes involved in
revolutionary activities. Abandoning drinking, Pavel starts to bring books and
friends to his home. Being illiterate and having no political interest, Nilovna is at
first cautious about Pavel's new activities. However, she wants to help him. Pavel is
shown as the main revolutionary character; the other revolutionary characters of the
novel are Vlasov's friends, the anarchist peasant agitator Rybin and the Ukrainian
Andrey Nakhodka, who expresses the idea of Socialist internationalism.
Nevertheless Nilovna, moved by her maternal feelings and, though uneducated,
overcoming her political ignorance to become involved in revolution, is considered
the true protagonist of the novel.[2

Siddhartha: An Indian novel

“Siddhartha” is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the

spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of
the Gautama Buddha. The book, Hesse's ninth novel, was written in German, in a
simple, lyrical style. It was published in the United States in 1951 by New Directions
Publishing and became influential during the 1960s. Hesse dedicated the first part of
it to the French writer Romain Rolland and the second part to Wilhelm Gundert, his
cousin.
The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in
the Sanskrit language: siddha (achieved) + artha (what was searched for), which
together means "he who has found meaning (of existence)" or "he who has attained
his goals".[1] In fact, the Buddha's own name, before his renunciation, was
Siddhartha Gautama, prince of Kapilavastu. In this book, the Buddha is referred to
as "Gotama".

The story takes place in ancient India, where Siddhartha decides to leave his
home in the hope of gaining spiritual illumination by becoming an ascetic Samana.
Joined by his best friend Govinda, Siddhartha fasts, becomes homeless, renounces
all personal possessions, and intensely meditates. Eventually the pair seek out and
personally speak with the enlightened Gautama, but although Govinda hastily joins
the Buddha's order, Siddhartha does not. For him, the Buddhist philosophy, though
supremely wise, must be individually realized independently of instruction by a
teacher. He thus resolves to carry on his quest alone.
 Siddhartha crosses a river and the ferryman, whom Siddhartha is unable to
pay, predicts that Siddhartha will return later to compensate him in some way.
Venturing onward toward city life, Siddhartha encounters the courtesan Kamala, the
most beautiful woman he has seen. She notes Siddhartha's handsome appearance and
fast wit, but warns him that he must become wealthy to win her affections so that
she may teach him the art of love. Although Siddhartha despised materialistic
pursuits as a Samana, he agrees now to Kamala's suggestion. She directs him to the
employ of Kamaswami, a local businessman, and insists that he have Kamaswami
treat him as an equal rather than an underling. Siddhartha easily succeeds, providing
a voice of patience and tranquility, which Siddhartha learned from his days as an
ascetic, against Kamaswami's fits of passion. Thus Siddhartha becomes a rich man
and Kamala's lover, but in his middle years he realizes that the luxurious lifestyle he
has chosen is merely a game that lacks spiritual fulfillment. Leaving the bustle of
the city, Siddhartha returns to the river, disillusioned and contemplating suicide.
Falling into a meditative sleep, he is saved only by an internal experience of the holy
word, Om.

The next morning, Siddhartha briefly reconnects with Govinda, who is

passing through the area as a wandering Buddhist monk. Siddhartha decides to live
the rest of his life in the presence of the spiritually inspirational river, companioning
Vasudeva, the elderly ferryman, with whom he begins a humbler way of life.
Although Vasudeva is a simple man, he has spiritual insight and relates that the river
has many voices and significant messages to divulge to any who might listen.

Some years later, Kamala, now a Buddhist convert, is traveling to see the
Buddha on his deathbed, accompanied by her reluctant young son, when she is bitten
by a venomous snake near the river bank. Siddhartha recognizes her and she informs
him that the boy is his own son. After Kamala's death, Siddhartha attempts to console
and raise the furiously resistant boy, until one day the child flees altogether.
Although Siddhartha is desperate to follow the runaway, Vasudeva urges him to let
the boy find his own path, just as Siddhartha did himself in his youth. Listening to
the river with Vasudeva, Siddhartha realizes that time is an illusion and that all of
his feelings and experiences, even those of suffering, are part of a great and
ultimately jubilant fellowship of all things connected in the cyclical unity of nature.
After Siddhartha's moment of illumination, Vasudeva claims that his work is done
and he must depart into the woods, leaving Siddhartha peacefully fulfilled and alone
once more.

Toward the end of his life, Govinda hears about an enlightened ferryman and
travels to Siddhartha, not initially recognizing him as his old childhood companion.
Govinda asks the now-elderly Siddhartha to relate his wisdom and Siddhartha replies
that for every true statement there is an opposite one that is also true; that language
and the confines of time lead people to adhere to one fixed belief that does not
account for the fullness of the truth. Because nature works in a self-sustaining cycle,
every entity carries in it the potential for its opposite and so the world must always
be considered complete. Siddhartha simply urges people to identify and love the
world in its completeness. He then requests the puzzled Govinda to kiss his forehead;
when he does so, Govinda experiences the same visions of timelessness that
Siddhartha himself saw with Vasudeva by the river. Govinda then bows to his wise
and radiantly smiling friend.

Antigone

Antigone, in Greek legend, the daughter born of the unwittingly incestuous

union of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. After her father blinded himself upon
discovering that Jocasta was his mother and that, also unwittingly, he had slain his
father, Antigone and her sister Ismene served as Oedipus’ guides, following him
from Thebes into exile until his death near Athens. Returning to Thebes, they
attempted to reconcile their quarreling brothers—Eteocles, who was defending the
city and his crown, and Polyneices, who was attacking Thebes. Both brothers,
however, were killed, and their uncle Creon became king. After performing an
elaborate funeral service for Eteocles, he forbade the removal of the corpse of
Polyneices, condemning it to lie unburied, declaring him to have been a traitor.
Antigone, moved by love for her brother and convinced of the injustice of the
command, buried Polyneices secretly. For that she was ordered by Creon to be
executed and was immured in a cave, where she hanged herself. Her
beloved, Haemon, son of Creon, committed suicide. According to another version
of the story, Creon gave Antigone to Haemon to kill, but he secretly married her and
they had a son. When this son went to Thebes to compete in athletic contests, Creon
recognized him and put him to death, whereupon his parents committed suicide.
 Odyssey

Odyssey, epic poem in 24 books traditionally attributed to the ancient Greek

poet Homer. The poem is the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who wanders for 10
years (although the action of the poem covers only the final six weeks) trying to get
home after the Trojan War. On his return, he is recognized only by his faithful dog
and a nurse. With the help of his son, Telemachus, Odysseus destroys the insistent
suitors of his faithful wife, Penelope, and several of her maids who had fraternized
with the suitors and reestablishes himself in his kingdom.
The Odyssey does not follow a linear chronology. The reader begins in the
middle of the tale, learning about previous events only through Odysseus’s retelling.
The first four books set the scene in Ithaca. Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, and their
young son, Telemachus, are powerless before her arrogant suitors as they despair of
Odysseus’s return from the siege of Troy. Telemachus is searching for news of his
father, who has not been heard from since he left for war nearly 20 years earlier. He
journeys secretly to the Peloponnese and seeks out two men who fought with
Odysseus in the war at Troy, Nestor and Menelaus, and discovers that his father is
indeed still alive.

The second four books (V–VIII) introduce the main character, Odysseus, as
he is being released from captivity by the nymph Calypso on the island of Ogygia.
He suffers a shipwreck and lands on the shore of Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians.
In Books IX–XII Odysseus tells the Phaeacians of the harrowing journey he and his
crew endured as they tried to find their way home—including their encounters with
the lotus-eaters, Laestrygonians, and the sorceress Circe, their narrow escape from
the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus, their ordeal navigating between Scylla and
Charybdis, and the final shipwreck in which Odysseus is washed ashore on Ogygia
alone.

Finally, Books XIII–XXIV, the second half of the poem, find Odysseus back
in Ithaca, facing unexpected obstacles and danger. He meets with his protector-
goddess Athena and reveals himself first to his faithful swineherd Eumaeus and then
to Telemachus before developing a complicated plan to dispose of the suitors.
During Odysseus’s absence, Penelope resisted the importuning of more than a
hundred suitors—who have stayed in Odysseus’s house, eating, drinking, and
carousing while waiting for her to decide among them. In order to reunite with his
wife, Odysseus kills them all, with the aid of Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius
(a servant and cowherd).
The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea, short heroic novel by Ernest Hemingway,
published in 1952 and awarded the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was his last
major work of fiction. The story centres on an aging fisherman who engages in an
epic battle to catch a giant marlin.
The central character is an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago, who has not
caught a fish for 84 days. The family of his apprentice, Manolin, has forced the boy
to leave the old fisherman, though Manolin continues to support him with food and
bait. Santiago is a mentor to the boy, who cherishes the old man and the life lessons
he imparts. Convinced that his luck must change, Santiago takes his skiff far out into
the deep waters of the Gulf Stream, where he soon hooks a giant marlin. With all his
great experience and strength, he struggles with the fish for three days, admiring its
strength, dignity, and faithfulness to its identity; its destiny is as true as Santiago’s
as a fisherman. He finally reels the marlin in and lashes it to his boat.

However, Santiago’s exhausting effort goes for naught. Sharks are drawn to
the tethered marlin, and, although Santiago manages to kill a few, the sharks eat the
fish, leaving behind only its skeleton. After returning to the harbour, the discouraged
Santiago goes to his home to sleep. In the meantime, others see the skeleton tied to
his boat and are amazed. A concerned Manolin is relieved to find Santiago alive, and
the two agree to go fishing together.
Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart, first novel by Chinua Achebe, written in English and
published in 1958. Things Fall Apart helped create the Nigerian literary renaissance
of the 1960s.

The novel chronicles the life of Okonkwo, the leader of an Igbo community,
from the events leading up to his banishment from the community for accidentally
killing a clansman, through the seven years of his exile, to his return, and it addresses
a particular problem of emergent Africa—the intrusion in the 1890s of
white missionaries and colonial government into tribal Igbo society. Traditionally
structured, and peppered with Igbo proverbs, it describes the simultaneous
disintegration of its protagonist Okonkwo and of his village. The novel was praised
for its intelligent and realistic treatment of tribal beliefs and of psychological
disintegration coincident with social unraveling.