The story of a disillusionment with respect to a misunderstood marriage, this novel of psychological realism is cast in the form of the recollections—with the full force of hindsight—of John Dowell, a wealthy American who has lost his wife, Florence,… Read More ›
psychological realism
Analysis of L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between
In 1953, this novel—Hartley’s seventh—received the Heinemann Foundation Prize; it is widely regarded as Hartley’s best novel. In 1971, director Joseph Losey chose it for a film adaptation with a screenplay by the noted British dramatist Harold Pinter. The film… Read More ›
Analysis of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day
Using a third-person omniscient point of view, this four-part novel follows the four siblings of the Das family of Old Delhi. The eldest son is Raja; now living in Hyderabad and married to a Muslim woman, Benazir, he has become… Read More ›
Analysis of Doris Lessing’s Children of Violence
The five volumes in this series include Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965), and The Four-Gated City (1969). Taking the series as a whole, critics rank this work as among the… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s Washington Square
One of Henry James’s shorter novels, Washington Square ran first as a serial in The Cornhill Magazine in 1880. James considers his trademark displaced protagonist in the form of Catherine Sloper, daughter of a wealthy New York physician. While the… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s Roderick Hudson
Roderick Hudson was Henry James’s first extensive novel, appearing as installments in 1875 in The Atlantic Monthly. James chose as protagonist an amateur American sculptor, placing him in Europe with a wealthy patron named Rowland Mallet. Critics agreed that this… Read More ›
Analysis of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss
The most tragic novel by George Eliot, this story is also her most autobiographical. It was published after her highly successful first novel, Adam Bede (1859), and it proved to be another great success, helping to establish Eliot’s reputation as… Read More ›
Analysis of George Meredith’s The Egoist
George Meredith indulged himself with a comedic presentation in his 1879 novel, The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative. It allowed him to engage in his favored approach of satirizing bourgeois stupidity. In doing so, he satirized himself. He felt he… Read More ›
Analysis of Henry James’s The American
Henry James published The American first as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly between June 1876 and May 1877, then as a volume in 1877. Born an American, James made his first extended visit to Europe at age 26, returned… Read More ›
You must be logged in to post a comment.