Modernist Novel

Willa Cather (1873-1947)

"My Ántonia"

My Ántonia (first published 1918) is considered the greatest novel by American writer Willa Cather. My Ántonia - pronounced with the accent on the first syllable of "Ántonia" - is the final book of the "prairie trilogy" of novels by Cather, a list that also includes O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.

My Ántonia tells the stories of several immigrant families who move out to rural Nebraska to start new lives in America, with a particular focus on a Bohemian family, the Shimerdas, whose eldest daughter is named Ántonia. The book's narrator, Jim Burden, arrives in the fictional town of Black Hawk, Nebraska, on the same train as the Shimerdas, as he goes to live with his grandparents after his parents have died. Jim develops strong feelings for Ántonia, something between a crush and a filial bond, and the reader views Ántonia's life, including its attendant struggles and triumphs, through that lens.

"Death Comes for the Archbishop"

It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico Territory. It is based on the careers of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy and Father Joseph Machebeuf.

The primary character is Bishop Jean Marie Latour, who travels alone from Cincinnati to New Mexico to take charge of the newly established diocese of New Mexico, which has only just become a territory of the United States. He is later assisted by his childhood friend Father Joseph Vaillant. At the time of his departure, Cincinnati is the end of the railway line west, so Latour must travel by riverboat to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence overland to New Mexico, a journey which takes an entire year. He spends the rest of his life establishing the Roman Catholic church in New Mexico, where he dies in old age. The novel is notable for its portrayal of two well-meaning and devout French priests who encounter a well-entrenched Spanish-Mexican clergy they are sent to supplant when the United States acquired New Mexico and the Vatican, in turn, remapped its dioceses. Several of these entrenched priests are depicted in classic manner as exempla of greed, avarice and gluttony, while others live simple, abstemious lives among the Indians. Cather portrays the Hopi and Arapaho sympathetically, and her characters express the near futility of overlaying their religion on a millennia-old Native culture. Cather's vivid landscape descriptions are also memorable.

William Faulkner (1897-1963)

Faulkner is likely to appear on the GRE because of his distinctive style. Also, if you ever see the names Quentin Compson, of if you see the surname Snopes, you're looking at Faulkner. I won't put a summary for all Faulkner's works here, but know that the most likely candidates for the GRE are The Sound and the Fury, and the short story "A Rose for Emily."

"Sound and the Fury"

The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times.

The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble southern family descended from civil war hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, greed, selfishness and, ultimately, psychological impotence. Especially in regard to the latter, the novel has been often described as having the thematic structure of a Greek tragedy. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically.

A famous passage that may appear on the GRE, it is narrated by Quentin:

“When the shadow of the sash appeared in the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excruciatingly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.”

**The title of the novel is taken from Macbeth's soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
''Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing..."

"A Light in August"

The narrative structure consists of three connected plot-strands. The first strand tells the story of Lena Grove, a young pregnant woman who is trying to find the father, Lucas Burch, of her unborn child. With that purpose she leaves her home town and walks several hundred miles afoot to Jefferson, a town in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha county. There she is supported by Byron Bunch, an employee in the planing mill who falls in love with Lena and hopes to marry her. Bunch keeps secret that Lucas Burch is hiding in town under the alias Joe Brown. Lena is a simple child of nature, representing positive human qualities like innocence and endurance. Her journey in August and the birth of her child are symbolic of the eternal cycle of nature.

The narrative plot of Lena's story is also circular; it builds a framework around the two other plot-strands. One of these is the story of the enigmatic character Joe Christmas.

One day he comes to the planing mill in Jefferson and asks for a job. The work at the planing mill is just a cover up for his illegal alcohol business. He has a sexual relationship with Joanna Burden, who is descended from a formerly powerful abolitionist family. She lets Joe live in the cabin behind her house. Joanna Burden’s brother and grandfather, two civil right activists, were both gunned down at daylight. Joanna Burden continues her ancestors' struggle for Black emancipation, which makes her an outsider in the society of Jefferson, much like Christmas.

Her relationship with Christmas begins rather disturbingly, with an ambiguous episode in which sexual abuse is suggested, and it ends in disaster. As a result of sexual frustration and the beginning of menopause, she turns to religion. At the climax of her relation to Christmas, she tries to force him, by threatening him with a gun, to admit publicly his black ancestry and to join a black law firm. But the old gun jams and Christmas gets away. Joanna Burden is murdered soon thereafter. Her throat is slit and she is nearly decapitated. Her body is carried outside and her house is set on fire. The murder was presumably committed by Joe Christmas, but this is not explicitly narrated; one could argue that Burch murdered her. It appears that Lucas Burch/Joe Brown may have at least set the house on fire.

Thanks to a tip-off by Lucas Burch/Joe Brown, Christmas' previous business partner in the moon-shining venture and the father of Lena's child, Christmas is caught. During his unsuccessful escape attempt, Christmas is shot and castrated by a national Guardsman named Percy Grimm.

The third plot strand tells the story of Reverend Gail Hightower. He is obsessed by the past adventures of his Confederate grandfather, who was killed while stealing a few chickens from a farmer's shed. Hightower's community dislikes him because of his sermons about his dead grandfather, and because of the scandal surrounding his personal life: his wife committed adultery, and later killed herself, turning the town's community against Hightower and effectively turning him into a pariah. The only character who does not turn his back on the Reverend is Byron Bunch, who visits Hightower from time to time. Bunch also tries to convince the Reverend to give the imprisoned Christmas an alibi, but Hightower initially refuses. When Christmas escapes from police custody he runs to Hightower's house where and tries to hide. Hightower then accepts Byron's suggestion, but it is too late as Percy Grimm is close behind.

At the end of the novel, the Reverend helps Lena to deliver her baby, a circumstance that helps him break his inner isolation and makes him feel his approaching death.

"A Rose for Emily"

A Rose for Emily is the story of an eccentric spinster, Emily Grierson. An unnamed narrator details the strange circumstances of Emily’s life and her odd relationships with her father who controlled and manipulated her, her lover Homer Barron, the townspeople of Jefferson who gossip about her, and her horrible secret. In her upstairs room, she hides Barron's corpse, which explains the horrid stench that emits from Miss Emily's house. The story’s subtle complexities continue to inspire critics while casual readers find it one of Faulkner’s most accessible works. The popularity of the story is due in no small part to its gruesome ending. The story explores many themes, including the society of the South at that time, the role of women in the South, and extreme psychosis.

In the story, the townspeople's points of views on Emily actually reflect the society's value at that moment to some extent. Although the townspeople don't have direct contact with Emily, their views on her and her family greatly affect her life. Their praises and admiration influence her father to keep her sheltered longer than she actually needs to be. Her father controls her thoughts and lifestyle. Emily feels that she is released when her father is dead. She dives into love with Homer and neglects people's judgments on her. When she realizes that Homer intends to leave her again, she makes sure that he would always be with her, whether he is alive or not. In his death Emily finds eternal love which is something no one could ever take away from her.

A famous quote about Emily and her father:

We had long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)

Fitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. In his own age, Fitzgerald was the self-styled spokesman of the "Lost Generation", or the Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He crafted five novels and dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age. Many admire what they consider his remarkable emotional honesty. His heroes — handsome, confident, and doomed — blaze brilliantly before exploding, and his heroines are typically beautiful, intricate, and alluring.

"The Great Gatsby"

Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire with a dubious and somewhat notorious past. He has no ties to the society of the rich in which he circulates, and no one quite knows how he made his fortune. Some believe he is a bootlegger. Rumors circulate of his "killing a man", or being a German spy during the Great War and the possibility of his being a cousin of contemporaneous German ruler Kaiser Wilhelm. However, despite the glamorous parties he throws, with their countless gatecrashers whom he generously tolerates, Gatsby is a lonely man. All he really wants is to "repeat the past" – to be reunited with the love of his life and golden girl, Daisy. That's why he was up to getting rich, not only, that he wouldn't end like his father, a farmer, but also to regain Daisy. But Daisy is now Daisy Buchanan, married to the staid, respectable millionaire and famous polo player Tom Buchanan, and the couple now has a young child. For Gatsby, though, Daisy's new status as mother and wife hardly constitutes an obstacle in conquering his love for her; and Daisy, feeling trapped and bored in her marriage with the unfaithful Tom, is flattered by the return of Gatsby's attention.

The narrator of the novel is Nick Carraway, a young Wall Street trader at the height of the rising financial market in the 1920s, who is also Daisy's cousin. Carraway has moved into the small bungalow next to a mansion owned by the millionaire Gatsby (a "factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy"). Eventually, Carraway cynically realizes that the rich, as respectable as they may seem superficially, are indeed "careless people," and Tom and Daisy are no exception. Tom has a mistress, Myrtle, the wife of the gas station owner in the wasteland of ashes between the fabulous mansions on Long Island and New York City, located somewhere around present day Flushing, Queens, New York. Nick meets and quickly makes friends with Gatsby, though, and becomes his liaison with Daisy. One afternoon, after a confrontation between Tom and Gatsby over Daisy, Daisy runs over Myrtle while driving back from the city. Tom misleads Myrtle's heartbroken husband George unintentionally, implying that the accident was Gatsby's fault, and Gatsby is consequently shot by George Wilson. Wilson commits suicide immediately afterward. Hardly anyone, and not even Daisy, comes out to Gatsby's funeral, and Nick, Gatsby's sole remaining friend, must attend it alone, where he meets Gatsby's father, a poor farmer. Gatsby is buried with the same mystery in which he suddenly appeared.

**The famous closing lines are: “He believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluted us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

"Babylon Revisited”

Fitzgerald's most renowned and most considered work of short fiction. A work that intimates the times as well as revealing a personal tragedy, the short story is his most often anthologized. Fitzgerald wrote the story amidst the turmoil of his own life, and that life is in many ways drawn out in "Babylon Revisited." Fitzgerald's consideration of the story as intensely personal cannot be doubted; that he evolved it into something universal makes it a masterful work.

It features the characters Charlie Wales and Helen Wales. It is the story of a father’s attempt to regain the custody of his daughter after recovering from the deathof his wife and his own alcoholism.

"This Side of Paradise (1920)"

The debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is a wealthy and attractive Princeton University student who dabbles in literature and has a series of romances.

Excerpt from the novel (Book 1: The Romantic Egotist, Chapter 1: Amory, Son of Beatrice):

Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O'Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family's life, an unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in "taking care" of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn't and couldn't understand her.

"Tender is the Night (1934)"

In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was hospitalized for schizophrenia in Baltimore, Maryland, and the author rented the "La Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson, Maryland to work on this book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It would be his first novel published in nine years, and the last novel that he would complete.

Ernest Hemmingway (1899-1961)

An American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His distinctive writing style is characterized by terse minimalism and understatement and had a significant influence on the development of twentieth century fiction. Hemingway's protagonists are typically stoics, often seen as projections of his own character–men who must show "grace under pressure." Many of his works are considered classics in the canon of American literature.

Hemingway, nicknamed "Papa," was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, as described in his novel A Moveable Feast. Known as part of " the Lost Generation," a name coined and popularized by Gertrude Stein, he led a turbulent social life, was married four times, and allegedly had various romantic relationships during his lifetime.

"The Sun Also Rises"

The novel is a powerful exposé of the life and values of the Lost Generation, a generation deeply scarred by World War I. The main characters are Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley. Barnes suffered an injury during World War I that makes him unable to consummate his relationship with Brett sexually.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls"

It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is given an assignment to blow up a bridge to accompany a simultaneous attack on the city of Segovia.

Behind enemy lines, with the guerrilla band of Pablo, he meets María, whose life has been shattered by the outbreak of the war. It is here that the story develops, as Pablo's unwillingness to commit to the operation clashes with Jordan's strong sense of duty, and even Jordan's sense of duty clashes with his newfound love for life caused by the presence of María. A substantial portion of the novel is told through the thoughts of Robert Jordan, with flashbacks to meetings with Russians in Madrid and some reflections on his father and grandfather. Another character, Pilar, relates events that demonstrate the incredible brutality of civil war, in one case by the actions of a revolutionary mob and in another by those of governmental authorities.

"A Farewell to Arms"

The novel, a love story, draws heavily on Hemingway's experiences as a young soldier in Italy. It tells the story of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I. Henry falls in love with the English nurse Catherine Barkley. After he is wounded at the front by a trench mortar shell, she tends to him in the hospital during his recuperation, and their relationship develops. His recuperation and romance with the now pregnant Catherine ends abruptly when Henry must return to the front. Henry narrowly escapes death at the hands of fanatical Italian soldiers, who are executing officers separated from their troops during the Italians' disastrous retreat following the Battle of Caporetto. He finds Catherine, and after a sojourn in an Italian resort, the couple flees to Switzerland on the eve of Henry's arrest for deserting. In Switzerland, their child is born dead, and Catherine dies shortly after due to hemorrhages. A Farewell to Arms is an excellent example of the simple, terse prose style that made Hemingway famous.

Henry James (1843-1916)

Yes: he is actually American. Don't forget it.

James could easily be pushed out of the "modern" category, but he's sufficiently in-between to qualify on this site. You can count on James' long, involute syntax to make an appearance on your exam. He has a lot of testable material, so it's best to focus on knowing A) his style, and B) the names of his characters. The guidebooks are pretty clear on what James' style looks and feels like. Note that the most likely candidates for your test are The Beast in the Jungle, Portrait of a Lady, and The Turn of the Screw.

"The Ambassadors"

Mr. Lambert Strether is from Woollett, Massachusetts and he has come to Europe at the request of his employer, Mrs. Newsome. Mrs. Newsome's son, Chad, has been in Paris for a long time and the Newsomes are worried that Chad will never return home. Strether is to bring Chad back home. Despite the assistance of his old friend, Waymarsh, and his new friend, Maria Gostrey, Strether is unable to fulfill this task. He is Mrs. Newsome's "ambassador," sent to Paris to protect her interests.

Strether arrives in Paris and his trip becomes a return to his own youth. He enjoys spending time with Chad's young friends, Miss Barrace and Little John Bilham. Strether is charmed by the Countess, Madame de Vionnet, a married woman with whom Chad has begun a relationship. Quite impressed by the Countess, Strether agrees to help her as well - though he does not know how he will be able to appease both Mrs. Newsome and the Countess. From the very beginning, Strether's plan is doomed to fail. He hopes to convince Mrs. Newsome that the Countess has been a positive influence on Chad and that Chad has changed for the better. Waymarsh gives Strether very sound advice: Strether should either follow his directions from Mrs. Newsome, or give up altogether. Strether rejects this advice and tries to find the compromise between two conflicting positions. Just when Chad seems willing to co back home to Woollett, it is Strether who convinces the young man to stay in Paris for a little while longer.

Strether's fate quickly runs downhill. Mrs. Newsome sends her daughter, Sarah Pocock (Chad's sister), to bring Chad home. Sarah arrives with her husband, Jim Pocock, and her sister-in-law, Mamie Pocock. It is suggested that Chad will return home to marry Mamie Pocock and continue in the family business: advertising. Unlike Strether, Sarah Pocock is not amused by Society and its trappings, nor is she impressed with the Countess, nor is she inspired by the architecture and atmosphere of Paris. Sarah intends to do her job and she does it quickly. It does not take very long for Chad to get himself ready to leave Paris. His condition to Sarah is that he will agree to return home if Strether gives him the word. Sarah turns to Strether, considering that the task has been completed - for how could Strether refuse? This is, however, exactly what Strether does.

Fearing that Chad will return home and live a miserable life in business, Strether looks at his own miserable life and is unable to condemn Chad to a similar fate. Strether knows that Chad will return home regardless of what he says. Still, Strether does not want the blot on his conscience. This move is costly for Strether: he will likely lose his job with the Newsomes. The possibility of his marriage with Mrs. Newsome is nullified as well. In sum, Strether, a man with very little money, has lost the opportunity to get a good deal more. In the end of the novel, the only solace that he has is in knowing that he has been true to his ideals and has gained nothing for himself.

"The Beast in the Jungle"

John Marcher, the protagonist, is re-aquainted with May Bartram, a woman he knew ten years earlier, who remembers his odd secret- Marcher is seized with the belief that his life is to be defined by some catastrophic or spectacular event, lying in wait for him like a "beast in the jungle."

May decides to take a flat nearby in London, and to spend her days with Marcher curiously awaiting what fate has in stall for John. Of course Marcher is a self-centered egoist, believing that he is precluded from marrying so that he does not subject his wife to his "spectacular fate". So he takes May to the theatre and invites her to an occasional dinner, while not allowing her to really get close to him for her own sake. As he sits idly by and allows the best years of his life to pass, he takes May down as well, until the denouement wherein he learns that the great misfortune of his life was to throw it away, and to ignore the love of a good woman, based upon his preposterous sense of foreboding.

"The Golden Bowl"

Adam Verver, a US billionaire in London, dotes on daughter Maggie, an innocent abroad. An impecunious Italian, Prince Amerigo, marries her even though her best friend, Charlotte Stant, an alabaster beauty with brains, no money, and a practical and romantic nature, is his lover. She and Amerigo keep it secret from Maggie that they know each other, so Maggie interests her widowed father in Charlotte, who is happy with the match because she wants to be close to Amerigo. Charlotte desires him, the lovers risk discovery, Amerigo longs for Italy, Maggie wants to spare her father pain, and Adam wants to return to America to build a museum. Amidst lies and artifice, what fate awaits adulterers?

"The Portrait of a Lady"

First published in 1881. It is the story of a young female American, Isabel Archer, who inherits a large amount of money, which left her to the Machiavellan schemings of two European expatriates. Like many of James' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably Italy.

"The Aspern Papers"

A novella about the unsuccessful attempts of the biographer of a famous and long-dead poet (Jeffrey Aspern) to secure some papers from the poet’s aged former mistress and her homely daughter. It is set in Venice. The protagonist encourages the daughter’s growing infatuation withhim in order to get the papers.

"Daisy Miller"

This novella deals with the eponymous American girl and her courtship by Winterbourne, both of whom are expatriates in Italy and Switzerland. She is overly flirtatious and dies a tragic death.

"Turn of the Screw"

Originally published in 1898, it is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation.

Due to its style, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The reader is challenged to determine if the protagonist, a nameless governess, is reliably reporting events or instead is some kind of neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the waters, her written account of the experience -- a frame tale -- is being read many years later at a Christmas house party by someone who claims to have known her.

An unnamed narrator listens to a manuscript read by a male friend from a former governess whom the latter claimed to know and who is now dead.

A young governess is hired by a man who has found himself responsible for his niece and nephew after the death of their parents. He lives in London and has no interest whatsoever in the children. The boy is at a boarding school. The girl, Flora, is living at his country home where she is cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. He gives the governess full charge of the children and makes it clear he never wants to hear from her again regarding them. The governess travels to her new employer's house and begins her duties. Shortly thereafter, the boy, Miles, turns up after being expelled from his school. For some mysterious reason, the headmaster feels he is a threat to the other boys.

The governess begins to see and hear strange things. She learns that her predecessor, a Miss Jessel, and her lover Quint, a clever but abusive man, died under curious circumstances. Gradually, she becomes convinced that the pair are somehow using the children to continue their relationship from beyond the grave. The governess takes action against the perceived threat with tragic consequences.

"The Art of Fiction"

In his classic essay The Art of Fiction, he argued against rigid proscriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest possible freedom in content and approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality. James wrote many valuable critical articles on other novelists; typical is his insightful book-length study of his American predecessor Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

Born Edith Newbold Jones, to a wealthy New York family often associated with the phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses,” Edith combined her insights into the privileged classes with her natural wit to write novels and short fiction which are notable for their humor and incisiveness.

The House of Mirth

It is centered around Lily Bart, a New York socialite who attempts to secure a husband and a place in affluent society.

The title is taken from Ecclesiastes 7:4: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” In the Gillian Anderson version, she admits as much to Gus Trenor at the end of her downward spiral: "I have been such a fool."

Of all of her best-known novels, "House of Mirth" seems the most tragic. The heroine, who is far from stupid, is so bound-up in her rigid principles, that she flatly refuses to grab hold of the virtual life-rafts thrown to her. Her lawyer friend, Lawrence Selden, would gladly have married her, but she thought him not rich enough. When Bertha Dorset's husband asks for her help in a proposed divorce suit against his wife by reason of infidelity, Lily coldly stands aside, uninvolved. Had the trial gone forward, she might have become his second wife. A wealthy and doting Mr. Gryce, evidently taken with her, is impetuously snubbed as she decides not to meet him at church. Compelled by her reverence for honesty, in a disastrous move she admits her gambling debts to her dour and snippy Aunt Julia, who then disinherits her. Having repeatedly refused the help of her powerful friends, she alienates them all, and now must seek increasingly menial and disreputable (i.e. proletarian) work.

Ethan Frome

It is set in turn-of-the-century New England, in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts.In the novel, infidelity is explored as the title character wishes to feel vibrant and young again. His wife, Zenobia (nicknamed Zeena), is a hypochondriac and has led herself to believe that she is going to die. Her relatives send for her cousin, Mattie Silver, who needs work as she has been left penniless and an orphan.

He embarks on a chivalrous affair with his wife's cousin, which culminates in Ethan nearly leaving his wife numerous times. When Mattie displeases Zeena, she sends her back to the city. Emotion overcomes Ethan, and he tells Mattie that he wants to live with her forever. They decide to sled into a bulky tree, so it will kill them instantly and they can be together in heaven. The accident paralyzes Mattie and leaves Ethan with many ailments.

The story is presented in a style reminscient of Peyton Place, in that a visitor to the town hears of the entire story not from Ethan, but from other villagers, like the visitor's landlady, Mrs. Ruth Varnum Hale and the trolley operator, Harmon Gow.

"The Age of Innocence"

The novel is set in the middle and upper classes of 1870s Old New York. Newland Archer, a lawyer set to enter into a marriage with the naïve but beautiful May Welland, must re-consider his choice with the intrusion of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's cousin. Ellen has returned to New York because she is trying to separate herself from a bad marriage. Newland is at first confused and then intrigued by Ellen, while he becomes more and more disillusioned with May, who is seen as the perfect product of Old New York society. When Ellen wants to divorce her husband, Newland convinces her otherwise and realizes how much he cares for her. He begs May to push up their wedding date but she refuses at first. He then admits to Ellen that he loves her and receives a telegram pushing up his wedding date.

Newland and May are married in the second part of the novel and Newland tried to forget about Ellen but sees her while he and May are in Newport. Ellen agrees that she will stay in America if they do not consummate their relationship. Newland soon discovers that Ellen’s husband wished she would return to him and she has refused. Ellen comes to New York to care for her sick grandmother and agrees to consummate her relationship with Newland. Suddenly, she decides to return to Europe inexplicably. May and Newland throw a farewell party for her and May tells Newland that she is pregnant and told Ellen so a few days before. Twenty-five years pass and Newland and his son are in Paris after May’s death. They arrange to meet Ellen in her Paris apartment but Newland changes his mind at the last minute, happy to live with his memories.

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