Author Archives: Coreen Catenburg

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Posted on by
Reply
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, Paperback ...

Biff, Mick, Copeland, and Jake, four people living in a small town in the south of The United States, all have their own ideas and goals. However, they fail in their attempts to communicate with the people around them, leaving them in a lonely situation that no one understands. Everyone is afraid of loneliness and unwilling to live alone but is lonely every day. Biff runs a cafe, and one of his favorite things to do is observe the diverse clientele sitting in the cafe. The marital life between Biff and his wife Alice is not harmonious and they seldom talk. Mick is a masculine little girl who loves music and painting and wants to get out of town and become a musician. But her dream was not supported by her family, and her parents only thought it was whimsical.

Copeland was a black doctor. He always had a strong sense of responsibility and mission. He made it his solemn mission to save the whole black race. He sacrificed his family for his ideal, leaving his wife and children behind. Jake was an active organizer of the workers’ movement with his own political views. He felt disappointed at the failure in his work and helpless at the whole social system. His heart yearned for someone who would understand him. To many in the town, Singer is the perfect man. He generously helped everyone in need. He was a patient listener who listened to their chatter with great interest, so everyone looked to him as a confidant and a source of support.

There are many legends about him in the town, and some people regard him as the incarnation of God. Biff, Mick, Copeland, and Jake all think that Singer understands what they are saying and agrees with the way they think and act. In fact, the irony is that Singer never understood them at all. Mr. Singer just needs them to cope with his loneliness. In the same way, they cannot really read Singer whose loneliness is so deep and hidden. As a child, Singer yearned for love and belonging. Singh and his best friend Antonapoulos lived together in the town for ten years.

Deep love for Antonapoulos was the backbone of his life. After a serious illness, Antonapoulos became irritable and was no longer content to stay at home quietly at night. When he went out, Singer followed him closely, and they went into a restaurant and sat down at a table, while Antonapoulos secretly pocketed sugar cubes or some silver. Singer always picks up the tab after him. Antonapoulos is eventually sent to an alien psychiatric hospital, and Singer’s life is filled with memories of their happy past and the prospect of a brief vacation together. Without him, Singer moves to a new house where he spends his boring time with Biff, Mick, Copeland, and Jake. When he went to see his companion for the third time, he received news of his death. Singer was then so desperate that he shot himself.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

Posted on by
Reply
Six Reasons to Not Like “The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot | Tony's ...

“The Waste Land” is a long poem by English poet Thomas Eliot. “The Waste Land” consists of five chapters: The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said. Eliot used a large number of allusions, including legends and myths, classical literature such as Dante and Shakespeare, religious elements such as Buddhism and the Bible, and even linguistic, anthropological and philosophical information. These allusions are not only the objective counterpart of the poet’s emotions, but also bear the whole structure of the poem through various metaphors. This collection of poems expresses the spiritual disillusionment of the Western generation and regarded as an epoch-making work in modern Western literature.

“The Waste Land” presents a big leap in thinking; the cohesion between images and scenes is often abrupt. The poet’s emotions lie behind strange images and symbols because these images and symbols correspond to the poet’s feelings. With many quotations, allusions, dialogues and scenes, it forms a colorful picture. The picture has different levels and contains an atmosphere that can fully arouse the reader’s imagination. The wilted wasteland — vulgar and ugly people who have died — the hope of resurrection running through the bleak and hazy picture of the whole poem composes the motif of “The Waste Land”. It profoundly shows the original appearance of the western society, which is full of human desires, moral depravity, despicable and dark life.

It also conveys the general disgust, disappointment, and disillusionment of westerners towards the world and reality after WWI. It shows the psychopathy and spiritual crisis of a generation, thus negating the modern Western civilization. At the same time, the poem attributed the depravity of western society to the sins of human beings and regarded the restoration of religious spirit as a panacea in saving the Western world and modern people. “The Waste Land”, a song lyric poem, has an eclectic style of expression, personifying symbolism and even metaphysics. It exhibits a riot of statements and sighs, of lyric and irony, of description and epigrams, of stately and elegant verses, of laughing and urban slang.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Martin Eden by Jack London

Posted on by
Reply
Martin Eden - Jack London | Feedbooks

Martin Eden is a semi-autobiographical novel written by American writer Jack London. The story tells about young sailor Martin Eden to get acquainted with Miss Rose of high society by chance, be inspired by her, and began his hard creation career. Despite all the setbacks, he still refused to obey Rose’s arrangement to enter her father’s office and become a promising young man. Then his fortune suddenly changed, and manuscripts that had previously been rejected were published and he became a popular writer. Friends and relatives who despised him before fell over each other to invite him to dinner, and Miss Rose who had broken up with him also came to throw herself on him. This makes him see clearly this world as a cold society; the wonderful illusion that holds him to love also is also disillusioned thoroughly.

In the real American society where Jack London lives, the United States has entered the period of monopoly capitalism. The bourgeoisie not only monopolizes the material wealth of society but also monopolizes the spiritual wealth. The bourgeoisie believes that all good things in the society belong to them, no matter in material life or in spiritual life. In the face of the underclass they turned their noses up. Therefore, in Jack London’s novel Martin Eden, the criticism and accusation of the corruption of the capitalist system, the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, and the inequality of class hierarchy can be seen everywhere. Through the description of the text, the reader can see different faces of the characters in the novel and feel the resistance behind feelings of the hero and heroine, their irreconcilable differences in values, and the nature each class in the capitalist society.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Posted on by
Reply
The Sound and the Fury - Wikipedia

The Sound and the Fury follows the family tragedy of fallen landowners the Compson family in the South. Old Compson loafed and drank too much. His wife is selfish and cruel and complains about everything. The eldest son Quentin desperately clings to the so-called old traditions of the South because his sister Caddy’s liberal approach to sex is seen as a disgrace to the identity of a southern lady. The second son Jason is cold and greedy. The third son Benji is mentally disabled he has the intelligence of a three year-old at age thirty-three. Through the inner monologue of the three sons, the whole novel starts around Caddy’s depravity, and finally it is supplemented by the limited perspective of the black maid Dilcey Gibson. Faulkner adopts a multi-angle narrative approach in this book.

The relationship between children who live without love and warmth in a family is full of contradictions and discord. Jason was a victim of his parents’ cold war. His mother’s preference for Jason caused him to be isolated from the other children. While in childhood Caddy, Quentin, and Benji played together, Jason was far away alone. In order to protect the interests of Benji, Caddy rankled Jason. Growing up in isolation, Jason lacks a sense of security and trust in others and becomes callous and cynical. After taking charge of family affairs as an adult, Jason curses, sneers, and blackmails Katie as a kind of revenge. In the absence of maternal love in the family, all these problems potentially led to the decline of the Compsons.

As for Benji, Mr. Compson showed no love and care because of his mental deficiency. With Jason, Mr. Compson took a cold and dismissive attitude. Mr. Compson was partial to his daughter Caddy but neglected her proper guidance, letting her go as she pleased. Mrs. Compson as a mother exhibited the least care and love for her children and never thought of their welfare. She saw her mentally retarded son as a punishment from God, believed that Caddy had been hostile to her since childhood, and that Quentin’s suicide was an act of revenge against her. From The Sound and the Fury, we can also see Faulkner’s high level of understanding and summarizing ability of life and history. Although his work is confusing and sometimes dreamlike, it actually presents a side of historic change in the American South through the disintegration and dying of an old family. As you can see, the old South has indeed collapsed irretrievably. Its economic base has long since deteriorated, and its remaining superstructure is crumbling. Caddy’s fall implies the downfall of the Southern code of ethics. Benji had limbs but no ability to think, while Quentin had complicated thoughts but lost the ability to act. The other brother Jason saw only money in his eyes and simply abandoned his old values.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Posted on by
Reply
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: 9780451419170 ...

Leaves of Grass is a collection of romantic poems with more than 300 poems. The collection of Leaves of Grass is the representative work of the American poet Walt Whitman and the first collection of poetry with the national style in the history of American literature. It has created a generation of poetry style and has had a great impact on American poetry.

Leaves of Grass also has a major innovation in artistic form, the poet broke the long-standing format of American poetry and created a “free style” poetry form. In terms of the structure of the poem, the poet adopts a large number of forms such as refrain, row, long sentence and parallel structure. Whitman also resorted to the usage of symbols and metaphors. The collection is characterized by colloquialism, with a rich expressive force and eloquent style. The poetry is sincere and fervent. The style is bold and fresh, making one one feel sick after reading it.

Leaves of Grass plays a very important role in the history of American poetry and even in the history of literature. It is a world-renowned masterpiece that ushered in a new era of American national poetry and its influence on even the English language as a whole can be described as revolutionary. Whitman’s collection of leaves of Grass was first published in 1855 with only twelve poems. By the time of his death, the last edition contained nearly four hundred poems. He named his collection Leaves of Grass because they represented the most ordinary Americans at the bottom of our society.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Posted on by
Reply
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - Penguin Books ...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American writer Mark Twain. It is a sequel to the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, first published in 1885. The hero of the story is Huckleberry Finn, who met the reader in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn was a bright, kind, and brave white boy. He fled to the Mississippi River in pursuit of a free life. On the run, he meets Jim, a slave. Jim is a hard-working, simple, warm, honest, and loyal slave. He fled from his master’s house in order to escape the fate of being sold again by the master. The two went through various adventures. The novel praised the boy Huckleberry’s wit and kindness, condemned the hypocrisy of religion and the ignorance of believers, and created the image of a dignified slave.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a masterpiece because Mark Twain took the literary traditions of the American frontier west and expanded them beyond the narrow confines of such humorous literature. There are many readers who, after reading this novel, admire the consistency, perfection, and appropriateness of the various dialects used by the author — it is hard to find a word in this book that is not closely tailored for Huckleberry or Jim.

As a classic work in American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain has its unique linguistic art, namely the use of colloquial language. The language of the protagonist narrator often breaks grammatical conventions, matches with the narrator’s child-like thinking, and changes verb tenses at will. In addition, the language of other characters is mostly dialect, including slang. The colloquial language of Huckleberry Finn created a new style of literary language, creating a profound influence on American writers later.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

Posted on by
Reply
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Kindle edition by Hugo, Victor ...

“The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” is a story set in 15th century France with a quirky and contrasting approach. The novel exposes the hypocrisy of religion, declares the bankruptcy of asceticism, praises kindness, love and self-sacrifice of the lower working people, and reflects Hugo’s humanitarian thoughts. “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” is a tragedy in which the good innocent people were tortured and persecuted under the autocratic system. The heroine Esmeralda is a kind and pure young girl.

When the peddler poet, Granger, strayed late at night into a gathering place for vagabonds and beggars in Paris, and was about to be killed, she came forward and offered to marry him, taking him under her protection, though she did not love him. When Quasimodo was whipped in the blazing sun and cried out in pain of thirst, she was the only one who sympathized with the hideous bell-ringer who had hijacked her in the middle of the night. She thought the world was as pure as her, and she died in passionate love with the heartless Phoebus. She was steadfast in character, willing to die before Claude’s insolence. She was the darling of the vagabonds and beggars of Paris, but self-supporting and undefiled.

Hugo put such a bright image in the dark background of the Middle Ages, describing how the society ruled by despotism and rampant with the power of the church threatened her and persecuted her like a huge net, strangling her by horrible means. The religious fanaticism of Bohemian maidens, the vicious plots of church figures to satisfy their vile and animal desires, the brutality of the despotic state regime… all of these are described by Hugo in a romantic way as terrible as a nightmare.

Through this description, the author shows the darkness of the feudal autocratic society and highlights an anti-feudal theme of the work. Whether it’s Crowder or Quasimodo, they’re people of society at the end of the day. The division and conflict in their hearts reflected the division and conflict between theocracy and human rights, ignorance and knowledge seeking in their time, between the huge and heavy dark system and the struggling of vulnerable individuals, which finally led to the tragic end of all the characters.The literary value and social significance of “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” have a far-reaching influence. This novel, breaking the shackles of classicism, is a milestone in romantic works. Since its release, the novel has been adapted into numerous films, cartoons and plays.

-Coreen C.

Book Review: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Posted on by
Reply
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Dover Children's Evergreen Classics ...

The novel takes place in the first half of the 19th century in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River. The hero Tom Sawyer is innocent and lively, dares to explore, pursues freedom avidly,but cannot bear to restrain his individuality and endure boring life. In the antebellum period of the novel, the small town of St. Petersburg is in some ways a microcosm of American society. Through the adventures of the protagonist, the novel satirizes and criticizes vulgar social customs, hypocritical religious rituals and stereotyped school education in The United States, and describes the free and lively hearts of children with cheerful writing.

Tom lost his mother in infancy and was adopted by his aunt. Clever and naughty Tom could not stand the control of his aunt and school teacher. Late one night, while playing in a cemetery with his good friend Huckleberry Finn, he happened to witness a murder. For fear of being discovered by the murderer they know this matter, Tom, Huckleberry and another small friend together fled to a desert island to become “pirate”. Their family thought they were drowned, but they turned up at their own “funeral”. After a fierce ideological struggle, Tom finally stood up and testified against the murderer. Soon after during a picnic, he and his sweetheart Betsy got lost in a cave and faced death for three days and nights. After he manages to escape danger later, Tom Sawyer found the treasure that the murderer buried together with his good friend Huckleberry Finn.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer marks further development of Mark Twain’s realistic creation. This book describes the free and lively psychology of children, and in contrast exposes the vulgar conservative life of small town citizens, highlighting their dull and dreary lifestyle. Mischievous and lively, full of fantasy and justice, Tom planned to go out for adventures in order to get rid of the shackles of reality and enjoy the full pleasure of freedom. All of this contradicts the capitalist living environment and is not allowed by secular morality and church precepts. Generally speaking, criticizing stagnation, vulgarity and religious hypocrisy of American local life can be seen as the main content of the novel.

-Coreen C.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Posted on by
Reply
Walden - Wikipedia

Walden is a collection of essays by American writer Henry David Thoreau. Walden is a record of American writer Henry David Thoreau living by the Walden Pond. It describes what he saw, heard and thought over a period of more than two years. The book is rich in content, profound in meaning and vivid in language. Walden is composed of 18 essays.

In the process of the change of four seasons, it records in detail Thoreau’s inner desire, conflict, disappointment and self-adjustment, as well as the complicated mental process of his desire again after adjustment, which went through several cycles until its final realization. It shows that the author employs it to challenge his personal, and even human boundaries. But this kind of challenge is not the infinite hope of realizing self-worth, but the infinite power of recovery after injury.

Thoreau’s own practice at Walden Pond and his works have a consistent proposition: return to nature. In his works, he constantly pointed out that most of us modern people are trapped by family, work, various material needs, have lost spiritual pursuit and lived a materialistic life. That is still the case today, and it is getting worse. Many of us pay little attention to things beyond our petty personal interests and activities. In a global context, Walden has become a model of harmonious coexistence between man and nature. In the broader sense of ecology and biology, Thoreau was way ahead of us.

The myth of Walden represents a primitive way of life in pursuit of perfection, expressing an ideal that is both attractive and practical to contemporary people. This model is of ecological significance to us today, because the destruction of ecological balance and environmental degradation have reached a rather serious level, and many ecologists and environmentalists are working to protect the few remaining wealth left by nature to human beings. Thus, Walden is no longer just a specific place where the famous American writer Thoreau lived, wrote and thought. It has become a symbol. In Walden, we can find a way of life, a romance between man and nature, a persistent pursuit of ideals, a concept of embodied nature, and the eternal desire of man to approach and merge with nature.

-Coreen C.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Posted on by
Reply
For Whom the Bell Tolls (film) - Wikipedia

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” is a novel created by American writer Ernest Hemingway in 1940. This novel tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American who teaches Spanish in a university and has deep feelings for Spain. He volunteered for the Spanish army to blow up behind enemy lines. To cooperate with the counterattack, he was ordered to contact with the local guerrillas and complete the task of bombing bridges. He enlisted the support of Bilal, the wife of the guerrilla captain Pablo, and the rest of the team. He then isolated the demoralized Pablo, and arranged each man’s task in a step-by-step manner. In the midst of the flames of war, he heals the trauma of Maria, the girl whom Bilal has taken in because she was raped by his enemies. In these three days, Robert experienced the conflict between love and duty and the test of life and death while human nature continues to sublimate. When the bridge was bombed, Robert was wounded in the thigh and left alone to block the enemy. In the end, he sacrificed his young life for the Spanish people.

In “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, efforts are made to achieve a universal sense of harmony between nature and man, and man and woman. This harmony, Hemingway tells us, is the most difficult type of struggles. To understand one’s intimate relationship with nature and one’s co-existence with others requires breaking the consciousness of the human ego, overcoming the arrogant sense of domination and understanding the ethics of interconnectedness, interdependence and care.

-Coreen C.