Contemporary American Novel and Drama

Saul Bellow (1915-2005)

Bellow has a fair chance of showing up on the exam. If you know the names associated with a few of his books, you should be fine. An acclaimed Canadian-born American Jewish writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and is best known for writing novels that investigate isolation, spiritual dissociation, and the possibilities of human awakening.

"Herzog"

Herzog is a novel set in post-war America. It's a story of a man, a Jew who has had two unsucessful marriages. The entire novel is about the life of the protagonist, how he copes with the tragedies, his unsent letters to his friends, famous people living or dead. The beauty of the novel lies in the dissection of Herzog's mind. In typical Bellow style, the descriptions of emotions, physical features are simply brilliant. Herzog's relationships are the central theme of the novel. It's about relationships with not just women, friends, but also society and with himself. Many believe Herzog is autobiographical. There are many similarities between Herzog and Saul Bellow (Jewish, Chicago residents, failed marriages, etc.) Herzog's Jewishness is very visible. One will possibly be reminded of Philip Roth's novels when reading this. The setting is post-war America and for a traditional Jew this culture is very foreign. This adds subtle humor in the book even though Herzog is going through a tough phase. This book deserves a read and re-read. A thorough understanding of the book makes us think, try to find Herzog's characteristics in our own selves and avoid the mistakes that Herzog commits.

"Seize the Day"

It tells the story of Wilhelm Adler (a.k.a. Tommy Wilhelm) , a non-religious jewish New Yorker in his mid 40's who is having a midlife crisis. He is financially irresponsible and leaves his family. His wife says that he is like a youngster; she has great confidence is his earning ability, however. Tommy doesn't receive from his father what he wants most--he needs money to keep him going. The novel is set on Tommy's "day of reckoning", which leaves him a broken and humbled man. He is a familiar American type, the desperate man looking to get rick quickly. He thus falls for a con-artist. Tommy finds his surrogate father in a shady psychologist named Dr. Tamkin. The colorful Dr. Tamkin has put Tommy's money into the commodities market. Tamkin, and the money, disappear when it becomes clear that Tommy's father won't be supplying any fresh money for speculation. The charlatan poses as a psychologist who offers "seize the day" type bromides. Tommy's father, on the other hand, has always been all too prudent, and he seems to live for taunting Tommy about being more responsible.

Tommy has recently had two religious experiences. He had an "onrush of loving kindness" in an early part of the story, but at the end he offers a type of prayer to be delivered from the devil that plagues him. On the final page he is sobbing his heart out in a massive emotional release.

"Henderson the Rain King"

Eugene Henderson is an unhappy millionaire and pig farmer who searches for meaning and purpose in his life. His desperation at home brings him on a pilgrimage to Africa, where he hopes to find a new meaning to his seemingly lacking life. After his first native encounter ends in disaster, he arrives in a new village that soon declares him Rain King. With a new found friendship with the native king, Dahfu, Henderson is brought unwillingly into the king's ritualistic search of a lion thought to be the reincarnation of his predecessor. During this time, Henderson and Dahfu engage in disscussions that help to fill Henderson's spiritual void. Following another disaster and narrow escape, Henderson returns, planning on becoming a doctor.

Henderson the Rain King (1959) follows a similar theme as his previous work, the short story Seize the Day (1956). Both feature men in or approaching middle age who are plagued by acute desperation and lack meaningful social contacts. While the first ends in a breakdown, Henderson the Rain King ends on a particularly upbeat note, at least in Henderson's eyes. The philosophical discussions and ramblings that take place between Henderson and the natives and within himself serve as a precursor to Bellow's next novel, Herzog (1964), which frequently engages in similar inquiries into life and meaning. It was said to be Bellow's own favourite amongst his books.

Carson McCullers (1917-1967)

An American southern gothic writer. The Ballad of the Sad Café (1955) is the story of the chaos wrought on a woman’s life when her cousin Lymon Willis (a dwarf, both deformed and powerfully charismatic) enters her world.

She also wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Four lonely individuals, marginalized misfits in their families/communities, each obsessed with a vision of his or her place in the world, collect about a single deaf-mute with whom they share their deepest secrets. An adolescent who desires to write symphonies, an itinerant drunk who believes he must organize poor laborers, a black physician whose desire is to motivate his people to demand their rightful place in American society, and a cafe owner whose secret wish is sexually ambiguous, believes that the deaf Mr. Singer understands and validates his or her obsession. Singer, ironically obsessed with a friendship of questionable reciprocity, commits suicide when the friend dies.

* Toni Morrison (1931-)

Toni Morrison is very likely to appear on the exam. For a bio of her life, and more info on other works, check out the wikipedia page on her here.

"Song of Solomon (1977)"

Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon, brought her national attention. A family chronicle similar to Alex Haley's Roots, the novel follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, a black man living in Chicago, Illinois, from birth to adulthood. Morrison's protagonist, Macon "Milkman" Dead III, derives his nickname from the fact that he was breastfed during childhood (Macon's age can be inferred as he was wearing pants with elastic instead of a diaper, and that he later forgets the event, suggesting he was still rather young). Milkman's father's employee, Freddie, happens to see him through the window being breastfed by his mother. He quickly gains a reputation for being a "Momma's boy" in direct contrast to his (future) best friend, Guitar, who is motherless and fatherless.

Milkman has two sisters, "First Corinthians" and "Magdelene called Lena." The daughters of the family are named by putting a pin in the Bible, while the eldest son is named after his father. The first Macon Dead's name was the result of an administrative error when Milkman's grandfather had to register subsequent to the end of slavery.

Milkman's mother (Ruth Foster Dead) is the daughter of the town's only black doctor; she makes her husband feel inadequate, and it is clear she idolized her father, Doctor Foster, to the point of obsession. After her father dies, her husband claims to have found her in bed with the dead body, sucking his fingers. Ruth later tells Milkman that she was kneeling at her father's bedside kissing the only part of him that remained unaffected by the illness from which he died. These conflicting stories expose the problems between his parents and show Milkman that "truth" is difficult or impossible to obtain. Macon (Jr.) is often violently aggressive towards Ruth because he believes that she was involved sexually with her father and loved her father more than her own husband. On one occasion, Milkman punches his father after he strikes Milkman's mother, exposing the growing rift between father and son.

In contrast, Macon Dead Jr.'s sister, Pilate, is seen as nurturing—an Earth Mother character. Born without a navel, she is a somewhat mystical character. It is strongly implied that she is Divine—a female Christ-in spite of her name. Macon (Jr.) has not spoken to his sister for years and does not think highly of her. She, like Macon, has had to fend for herself from an early age after their father's murder, but she has dealt with her past in a different way than Macon, who has embraced money as the way to show his love for his father. Pilate has a daughter, Reba, and a granddaughter named Hagar. Hagar falls desperately and obsessively in love with Milkman, and is unable to cope with his rejection, attempting to kill him at least six times.

Hagar is not the only character who attempts to kill Milkman. Guitar, Milkman's erstwhile best friend, tries to kill Milkman more than once after incorrectly suspecting that Milkman has cheated him out of hidden gold, a fortune he planned to use to help his Seven Days group fund their revenge killings in response to killings of blacks.

Searching for the gold near the old family farm in Pennsylvania, Milkman stops at the rotting Butler Mansion, former home of the people who killed his ancestor to claim the farm. Here he meets Circe, an almost supernaturally old ex-slave of the Butlers. She tells Milkman of his family history and this leads him to the town of Shalimar. There he learns his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have escaped slavery by flying back to Africa, leaving behind twenty-one children and his wife Ryna, who goes crazy with loss. Returning home, he learns that Hagar has died of a broken heart. He accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where she is accidentally shot and killed by Guitar, who had intended to kill Milkman.

The novel ends on a poignant note. In an attempt to confront and reconnect with Guitar, Milkman leaps toward Guitar—and his own death, uttering his hard-won psychological truth: "if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it." Milkman's death brings the novel full circle, from the initial suicide "flight" of insurance agent Robert Smith to the self-sacrificing "flight" by Milkman.

"Beloved (1987)"

Beloved is loosely based on the life and legal case of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who killed her child to prevent the child from being taken back into slavery. The book's central figure is Sethe, who murdered her two-year-old daughter, Beloved, to save her from a life of slavery. The novel follows in the tradition of slave narratives but also confronts the more painful and taboo aspects of slavery, such as sexual abuse and violence. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. When the novel failed to win the National Book Award, a number of writers protested the omission.

The book follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver as they try to rebuild their lives after having escaped from slavery. Their home, 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, is haunted by a revenant, who turns out to be the ghost of Sethe's daughter. Because of the haunting—which often involves things being thrown around the room—Sethe's youngest daughter, Denver, is shy, friendless, and housebound, and her sons, Howard and Buglar, have run away from home by the time they are thirteen. Shortly afterward, Baby Suggs, the mother of Sethe's husband Halle, dies in her bed.

Paul D, one of the slaves from Sweet Home, the plantation where Baby Suggs, Sethe, Halle, he, and many other slaves had worked, arrives at 124. He tries to bring a sense of reality into the house. He also tries to make the family move forward and leave the past behind. In doing so, he forces out the ghost of Beloved. At first, he seems to be successful, because he leads the family to a carnival, out of the house for the first time in years. However, on their way back, they encounter a young woman sitting in front of the house. She has the distinct features of a baby and calls herself Beloved. Denver recognizes right away that she must be a reincarnation of her sister Beloved. Paul D, suspicious, warns Sethe, but charmed by the young woman, Sethe ignores him. Paul D is gradually forced out of Sethe's home by a supernatural presence.

When made to sleep outside in a shed, he is cornered by Beloved, who has put a spell on him. She burrows into his mind and heart, forcing him to have sex with her, while flooding his mind with horrific memories from his past. Overwhelmed with guilt, Paul D tries to tell Sethe about it but cannot and instead says he wants her pregnant. Sethe is elated, and Paul D resists Beloved and her influence over him. But, when he tells friends at work about his plans to start a new family, they react fearfully. Stamp Paid reveals the reason for the community's rejection of Sethe.

When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him what happened. After escaping from Sweet Home and making it to her mother-in-law's home where her children were waiting, Sethe was found by her master, who attempted to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe grabbed her children, ran into the tool shed and tried to kill them all, succeeding only with her oldest daughter. Sethe explains to Paul D, saying she was "trying to put my babies where they would be safe." The revelation is too much for him, and he leaves for good. Without Paul D, the sense of reality and time moving forward disappears.

Sethe comes to believe that the girl, Beloved, is the daughter she murdered when the girl was only two years old; her tombstone reads only "Beloved". Sethe begins to spend carelessly and spoil Beloved out of guilt. Beloved becomes angry and more demanding, throwing hellish tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Beloved's presence consumes Sethe's life to the point where she becomes depleted and sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved grows bigger and bigger. In the climax of the novel, Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community. People arrive at 124 to exorcise Beloved, and it is revealed that Beloved was not getting fat, as previously alluded, but is in fact pregnant from her encounters with Paul D. While Sethe is confused and has a "rememory" of her master coming again, Beloved disappears.

At the outset, the reader is led to assume Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe's murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that's her". Both are supportable by the text. Beloved sings a song known only to Sethe and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of Sethe's earrings without having seen them.

Flannery O’Connor

Considered an important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels, 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer in the vein of William Faulkner , often writing in a Southern Gothic style and relying heavily on regional settings and grotesques as characters. A "born" Roman Catholic , her writing is deeply informed by the sacramental, and the Thomist notion that the created world is charged with God. Her most famous work is a collection of short stories which includes the eponymous “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

“The Life You Save May Be Your Own”

A one-armed tramp, appropriately named "Mr. Shiftlet," walks up to a run-down farm where an old woman and her retarded daughter, Lucynell, are sitting on the front porch. Lucynell cannot talk. Mr. Shiftlet persuades the old woman to hire him for work around the farm and for repairing a car. She says she can feed him but not pay him. Over a period of a few weeks he repairs the car (which is what he really wants) and offers to marry Lucynell if her mother will give him some money

After the wedding Mr. Shiftlet takes Lucynell on a honeymoon, but abandons her in a country diner the first day, claiming she's a hitchhiker. As he drives towards Mobile, he picks up a boy and begins to lecture him about being good to his mother. The angry boy jumps out of the car, and Mr. Shiftlet prays that God will "break forth and wash the slime from this earth."

Eugene O'Neil ( 1888 – 1953)

O'Neil is very important for the GRE. He is very likely to show up for a few questions. Two plays not represented here are Desire Under the Elms and The Hairy Ape, which are minor compared with the three presented here.

an American playwright. More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced the dramatic realism pioneered by Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg into American drama. Generally, his plays involve characters who inhabit the fringes of society, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into dillusionment and despair.

"Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)"

Mourning Becomes Electra updates the Greek myth of Orestes to the family of a Northern general in the American Civil War. Agamemnon is now General Ezra Mannon, Clytemnestra is his second wife Christine, Orestes is his son Orin, and Electra is his daughter Lavinia. As an updated Greek tragedy, the play features murder, adultery, incestuous love, and revenge, and even a group of townspeople who function as a kind of Greek chorus. Though fate alone guides characters' actions in Greek tragedies, O'Neill's characters have motivations grounded in 1930s-era psychological theory as well. The play can easily be read from a Freudian perspective, paying attention to various characters' Oedipus complexes and Electra complexes.

It is divided into three plays of four to five acts each. In order, the three plays are titled Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. However, these plays are never produced individually, but only as part of the larger trilogy. Mourning Becomes Electra is thus extraordinarily lengthy for a drama, and in production is often cut down. Also, because of the large cast size, it is not performed as often as some of O'Neill's other major plays.

"The Iceman Cometh"

The Iceman Cometh stages the story of the whiskey-soaked and disillusioned denizens of Harry Hope's saloon and the upheaval caused by the newly sober salesman Hickey, who -- with all the annoying zeal of a recent convert -- urges his former drinking companions to give up their "pipe dreams."

"Long Day's Journey Into Night"

Long Day's Journey Into Night covers a fateful, heart-wrenching night at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones (the autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his brother, and their parents): James Tyrone Sr., an Irish-born retired actor who squandered his considerable gifts as a classical thespian to make a career playing one particular role in a commercially successful but artistically unfulfilling play; Edmund, the younger and more poetically inclined son, suffers from a respiratory condition and a deep disillusionment with the world around him after sailing the world as a deck hand; the elder son James Jr. ("Jamie"), an affable alcoholic and the object of stubborn repeated attempts by his father to be set up in business, despite his status as a confirmed ne'er-do-well; and the wife and mother of the family, Mary Cavan Tyrone, who lapses between self-delusion and the haze of her morphine addiction - the result of the shoddy ministrations of a quack doctor during her difficult labor and delivery of Edmund twenty-three years prior.

Alice Walker (1944-)

Walker's writings include novels, stories, essays and poems. They focus on the struggles of African-Americans, and particularly African-American women, against societies that are racist, sexist, and often violent. Her writings tend to emphasize the strength of black women and the importance of African-American heritage and culture.

"The Color Purple"

The Color Purple is an epistolary novel: that is, the book is written in the form of letters. The central character is Celie, a young woman who is sexually abused by her father (who, she later discovers, is her stepfather) and is forced to marry a widower with several children, who is physically abusive towards her.

When her husband's mistress, singer "Shug" Avery, comes on the scene. Initially, Celie feels threatened by this effervescent, liberated version of feminity - a form that has previously been alien to her.

Like "Mr-", Celie's husband (Albert Johnson), Shug has little respect for Celie and the life she lives at first and continues in her lover's footsteps, abusing Celie and adding to her humiliation.

In time, however, the two women bond, and Celie gradually learns what it means to become an empowered woman in her own right, through both sexual and financial emancipation and she finds the strength to leave her tyrannical husband.

This book is often argued to address many issues which are important to understanding African-American life during the early-mid 20th century. Its main theme is the position of the black woman in society, as the lowest of the low, put upon both because of her gender and her color. The book also deals with the idea of how Celie finds true emotional and physical love with Avery.

Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

Both Delta Wedding and "Why I live at the P.O." are good candidates for a question or two on the GRE.Her first short story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," appeared in 1936. In 1941 she published her first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green. Her novel, The Optimist's Daughter , won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

"Delta Wedding"

Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty creatively unfolds through the overheard thoughts of the members of the Fairchild family. The oversized clan deals with a massive amount of external and internal issues that focus on both the unity and the conflict within this tight-knit Southern family. This novel does not focus on one person, place, or thing. The protagonist of Delta Wedding is the Fairchild family in that the author tells the story through the voices of the entire family. However, the character of George does stand out as the hero of the novel.

“Why I Live at the P.O.”

Sister, the narrator of “Why I Live at the P.O.”, opens the story explaining why Mr. Whitaker broke up with her and married her sister, Stella-Rondo: she “[t]old him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same.” While this bit of dialogue may seem innocent initially, it refers to the folk belief that all women have one breast bigger than the other. Blunt interest in female sexuality is hardly characteristic of the prim southerner misrepresented in so much Welty criticism

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

You can count on a few questions from these plays to appear on the GRE. An American playwright. Genre critics maintain that Williams writes in the Southern Gothic style. He is known for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

"The Glass Menagerie (1944)"

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, and its action is drawn from the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom is a character in the play, which is set in St. Louis in 1937. He is an aspiring poet who toils in a shoe warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. Mr. Wingfield, Tom and Laura’s father, ran off years ago and, except for one postcard, has not been heard from since.

Amanda, originally from a genteel Southern family, regales her children frequently with tales of her idyllic youth and the scores of suitors who once pursued her. She is disappointed that Laura, who wears a brace on her leg and is painfully shy, does not attract any gentleman callers. She enrolls Laura in a business college, hoping that she will make her own and the family’s fortune through a business career. Weeks later, however, Amanda discovers that Laura’s crippling shyness has led her to drop out of the class secretly and spend her days wandering the city alone. Amanda then decides that Laura’s last hope must lie in marriage and begins selling newspaper subscriptions to earn the extra money she believes will help to attract suitors for Laura. Meanwhile, Tom, who loathes his warehouse job, finds escape in liquor, movies, and literature, much to his mother’s chagrin. During one of the frequent arguments between mother and son, Tom accidentally breaks several of the glass animal figurines that are Laura’s most prized possessions.

Amanda and Tom discuss Laura’s prospects, and Amanda asks Tom to keep an eye out for potential suitors at the warehouse. Tom selects Jim O’Connor, a casual friend, and invites him to dinner. Amanda quizzes Tom about Jim and is delighted to learn that he is a driven young man with his mind set on career advancement. She prepares an elaborate dinner and insists that Laura wear a new dress. At the last minute, Laura learns the name of her caller; as it turns out, she had a devastating crush on Jim in high school. When Jim arrives, Laura answers the door, on Amanda’s orders, and then quickly disappears, leaving Tom and Jim alone. Tom confides to Jim that he has used the money for his family’s electric bill to join the merchant marine and plans to leave his job and family in search of adventure. Laura refuses to eat dinner with the others, feigning illness. Amanda, wearing an ostentatious dress from her glamorous youth, talks vivaciously with Jim throughout the meal.

As dinner is ending, the lights go out as a consequence of the unpaid electric bill. The characters light candles, and Amanda encourages Jim to entertain Laura in the living room while she and Tom clean up. Laura is at first paralyzed by Jim’s presence, but his warm and open behavior soon draws her out of her shell. She confesses that she knew and liked him in high school but was too shy to approach him. They continue talking, and Laura reminds him of the nickname he had given her: “Blue Roses,” an accidental corruption of the word for Laura’s medical condition, pleurosis. He reproaches her for her shyness and low self-esteem but praises her uniqueness. Laura then ventures to show him her favorite glass animal, a unicorn. Jim dances with her, but in the process, he accidentally knocks over the unicorn, breaking off its horn. Laura is forgiving, noting that now the unicorn is a normal horse. Jim then kisses her, but he quickly draws back and apologizes, explaining that he was carried away by the moment and that he actually has a serious girlfriend. Resigned, Laura offers him the broken unicorn as a souvenir.

Amanda enters the living room, full of good cheer. Jim hastily explains that he must leave because of an appointment with his fiancée. Amanda sees him off warmly but, after he is gone, turns on Tom, who had not known that Jim was engaged. Amanda accuses Tom of being an inattentive, selfish dreamer and then throws herself into comforting Laura. From the fire escape outside of their apartment, Tom watches the two women and explains that, not long after Jim’s visit, he gets fired from his job and leaves Amanda and Laura behind. Years later, though he travels far, he finds that he is unable to leave behind guilty memories of Laura.

"A Street Car Named Desire (1947)"

Blanche DuBois is a fading Southern belle whose pretensions to virtue and culture only thinly mask her nymphomania and alcoholism. After her ancestral southern plantation is "lost" (due to the "epic fornications" of her ancestors), Blanche arrives at her sister's house in the French Quarter of New Orleans where the multicultural setting is a shock to her nerves. Stella, the sister, is just as addicted to sex as Blanche, and is willing to put up with Stanley's crudity and lack of culture because of her need for a sexual partner.

The reference to the streetcar (tram) called Desire is ironic, as well as an accurate piece of New Orleans geography. Blanche has to travel on it to reach Stella's home, the idea being that she has already indulged in desire before she arrives. Her sorrow is that the pleasure brought from desire is only short, just like the streetcar journey. It does not give her security. Still, she cannot return on the streetcar named Desire because she has only a one-way ticket.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)"

It is the story of a Southern family in crisis, focusing on the turbulent relationship of a wife and husband, Maggie "The Cat" and Brick Pollitt, and their interaction with Brick's family over the course of a weekend gathering at the family estate in Mississippi, ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of patriarch and tycoon "Big Daddy" Pollitt. Maggie, through wit and beauty, has escaped a childhood of desperate poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitt family, but finds herself suffering in an unfulfilling marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, has neglected his wife and further infuriates her by ignoring his brother's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference, and his nearly continuous drinking, date back to the recent suicide of his friend Skipper. Although Big Daddy has cancer and will not celebrate another birthday, his doctors and his family have conspired to keep this information from him and his wife. His relatives are in attendance and attempt to present themselves in the best possible light, hoping to receive the definitive share of Big Daddy's enormous wealth.