Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night
When Gayle Wald wrote, “Sayers’s career writing detective stories effectively ends with Gaudy Night” (108), she did not present a new argument, but continued the tradition that Gaudy Night does not center on the detective story. Barbara Harrison even labeled Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter/Harriet Vane books, Strong Poison, Gaudy Night, and Busman’s Honeymoon, as “deliriously happy-ending romances” (66). The label stretches the definition of a romance, but Gaudy Night indeed has very little to do with crime. Sayers encrypted the real story within her detective novel. This story behind the story narrates love and human relationships. In fact, the crimes in Gaudy Night only supply a convenient way for Sayers to place Lord Peter and Harriet Vane on equal footing to bring closure to their relationship. So the story does not focus on the solving of a crime, at least from Sayers’s point of view. Lord Peter, however, sees it differently. As a character in the book, rather than the omniscient writer, Lord Peter, in fact, obsesses about solving the crime. Sayers underlines this conflict between the writer and the detective by making us see Lord Peter entirely through the eyes of another character, Harriet Vane. In Gaudy Night, Sayers also provides the reader with a weak plot, at least compared to the rest of her opus, and a lack of details concerning the mystery, especially the content of the letters. The story itself contradicts one of Sayers’s long held beliefs, that mystery and love stories do not, and should never, mix. These facts, coupled with the grandiose detail given to us about Peter and Harriet’s personal interaction, show that Sayers had her mind more on love than on crime.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
COBRA was passed in 1986 and provides guidelines for continuous health coverage in case of sudden loss of a job or even death among other situations that cannot be avoided. Employees as well as employers have to participate in the program to make it effective. The employees are guided by the “Employee Benefits Security Administration” and the “Employee Retirement Income Security Act” to fill out forms of compliance. The law was designed to find temporary solutions for continued medical insurance so that the unemployed can still enjoy and access healthcare facilities despite the financial misfortunes that may render them unable to support themselves as well as their families as they find a permanent solution (Magill, 2009).
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My initial inspiration for this piece was Trifles, which funnily enough only shares the characteristic of detectives being involved within the plot. As per suggestion on my proposal, I developed my idea of detectives solving a case further by including dialogue and inter-personnel relationships similar to those found in Glengarry Glen Ross. Taking the idea of different members of the real-estate office discussing work and plotting in Glengarry Glen Ross, and applying them to a trio of detectives on a case was interesting to say the least.
Agatha Christie depicts a descriptive, fictional murder mystery in the novel ABC Murders. With the help of the narrator, Captain Arthur Hastings, Hercule Poirot solves the murders of four victims who are killed in alphabetical order by Franklin Clarke, more commonly known as ABC. The story elicits copious high points but the rare low point as well. Examples of these aspects can be found within the plot, setting, characters, conflict, and theme of the book. According to Stanford’s Suggested Reading List, the book is considered a “must read.” ABC Murders definitely holds up to the reputation placed upon it by Stanford and would be a favorable choice for anyone wishing to read a well written novel.
The novel, The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway is an example of how an entire generation redefined gender roles after being affected by the war. The Lost Generation of the 1920’s underwent a great significance of change that not only affected their behaviors and appearances but also how they perceived gender identity. Lady Brett Ashley and Jake Barnes are two of the many characters in the novel that experience shattered gender roles because of the post war era. The characters in the novel live a lifestyle in which drugs and alcohol are used to shadow emotions and ideals of romanticism. Brett’s lack of emotional connection to her various lovers oppose Jake’s true love for her which reveals role reversal in gender and the redefinition of masculinity and femininity. The man is usually the one that is more emotionally detached but in this case Lady Brett Ashley has a masculine quality where as Jake has a feminine quality. Both men and female characters in the novel do not necessarily fit their gender roles in society due to the post war time period and their constant partying and drinking. By analyzing Brett, Jake, and the affects the war had on gender the reader obtains a more axiomatic understanding of how gender functions in the story by examining gender role reversal and homosexuality.
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Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
In Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, there is a broad array of symbolism throughout the entire book. The purpose of using symbolism versus writing out the meaning making an extraordinarily boring and bland book is that it makes the reader have to think more and delve into the deeper meaning of things. Hawthorne also uses symbolism to convey a much deeper mental image of his words to the audience. He uses an vast array of colors, unique characters and grave sin to portray an deeper unconvoluted meaning to the audience; also, by using symbolism, Hawthorne manages to broaden the knowledge and imaginary context of The Scarlet Letter to allow people relate to the novel through the scarlet letter.
In his popular 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway illustrates how war plays a huge role in the real world and character identity. Although the novel features a fresh literary style, enjoyable dialogue, and beautifully constructed meaning, “nothing leads anywhere in the book, and that is perhaps the real point of it” (Young). The characters that Hemingway creates rarely mention the war; nevertheless, it affects everything they do and say. Jake Barnes, the protagonist of the novel, suffers from an emasculating war wound that results “in his frustrated love for an Englishwoman whom time and misfortune have driven into alcoholism, promiscuity, and self-destructive irresponsibility” (Sanderson). Participation in the war is seen as a major conflict as Jake’s impotence renders it impossible for him to have a relationship with Brett Ashley. Along with them, Jake’s friends have also lost their self-identity during the war; in effect, they are always agitated, itinerant, and searching for a constant change of scenery. While they favor to live in America rather than Europe, they have detached themselves from their home country and made themselves expat...
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (1926) has been considered the essential prose of the Lost Generation. Its theme of alienation and detachment reflected the attitudes of its time.