Comments for everyone...

Before reading each summary I would like to emphasize that every piece of writing you do for this novel should adhere to the basic guidelines of writing we've discussed in this class.

1. Introduction - Grab the reader's attention with the very first sentence somehow, then build each sentence from old to new information and from general to specific, and then lead to some sort of thesis statement.

2. Thesis Statement Needed

3. Each paragraph needs to have a focus that develops the thesis rather than just based on chapters or sections of the novel.

4. There needs to be a conclusion that does more than simply summarizes your summary

The Bell Jar: 1st Half summary

The first chapter, introduces the main character, Esther Greenwood. The story is narrated in first person, but in the first chapter she mentions how she has a baby now, which leads you to believe that the story is being told in the future. Esther, who is a college student at the time of the story, is doing an internship in New York. While she knows that most girls would envy her for all of the expensive gifts and clothes she gets for free, and for the glamorous parties she gets to attend, but for some reason, it does not excite her the way she thinks it should. One night, when her friend Doreen and her are in a cab on their way to a party thrown by their magazine, a man approaches their cab and asks them to join him and his friends at a bar. His name is Larry and they decide to go with him, because Esther wants to see New York from a different perspective besides the carefully planned out events of the magazine. Larry appeared to be very interested in Doreen, but Esther was not interested in his friend. In the second chapter, Doreen, Larry and Esther all end up going back to his apartment, but Esther gets frustrated while they are flirting and danced and walks home 48 blocks. When she gets home, she relaxes in the tub for a long time, because she feels as if soaking in the tub is dissolving all of the bad off of her; Lenny, and New York. Doreen comes back really drunk, really later, and tried to get Esther to let her into her room, but Esther leaves her in the hallway, where she vomits, and Esther vows that she will continue to be Doreen’s friend, but have no real attachment to her. In the third Chapter, the girls are all at a luncheon thrown by the magazine, minus Doreen who was with Lenny. Esther recalls that morning, when she decline hanging out with Doreen and Lenny for the day and decided to skip the fur show that they were supposed to attend as well and spend the day in bed. When one of the girls asks her why she wasn’t there, she started to cry, because Jay Cee, their boss had called her and asked her into her office and asked her if she was enjoying her job, and what she wants to do when she graduated college. Although Esther usually had a scripted out line as a response, when Jay Cee asked, she simply responded “I don’t know”, but then tries to save herself and says that she was thinking about going into publishing. Jay Cee tells her that it would be in her best interest to learn a couple languages if she wants to be a competitive publisher, but this stresses Esther out, because she does not feel that there is time in her schedule to take up a language. You can tell in this chapter that Esther is starting to feel like there is no direction in her life, and she seems unhappy. In the next chapter, Jay Cee had sent Esther off to do some work and then to the banquet. After the banquet the girls go to a movie premier. Half way through, all of the girls start feeling sick and decide to leave the theatre, and they throw up all the way home. Esther collapses in the hallway and wakes up to a nurse putting her into bed and Doreen informs her later that all of the girls have food poisoning from the crab. The next morning, Esther gets a phone call from Constantin, who is a friend of Mrs. Willard, who is a friend of her mothers. Mrs. Willard has a son, Buddy, who wants to marry Esther, but she loathes him. In his recent letters Buddy seems to be making more of an attempt, such as telling her that he found a poem written by a doctor, which shows that he has changed his way of thinking that doctors and writers do not get along. When the first started dating, Esther was really interested in him, he asked her to the Yale Junior Prom, where he treated her like a friend, but kissed her afterwards. The next chapter, Esther thinks back to a lot of events in their relationship, including watching a baby being born for a lecture. After the lecture Buddy asked her if she had ever seen a naked man and continued to take off his clothed. He then admitted to her that he slept with a women from his summer job in Cape Cod. She broke up with him, because she was angry that he presented himself as pure, but really wasn't. All of these events and memories play important roles in the ending of the novel, and revealing the important things in her life.

No Country for Old Men

The novel began with the sheriff Bell talkin about how he used to visit the psychopathic killer before his execution.The next chapter begins with Chigurh killing the sheriff and escaping from lock up.He then managed to kill another innocent person on the interstate.It was the first couple of pages of the story and already there were two murders.By the next chapter, Llewelyn Moss gets himself tied into what will become a chase for money.He comes across trucks that have dead mexican men inside and outside.At the scene he finds a bag filled with a whole bunch of cash.Before he finds tha cash he does see a bag with brown powder like substance,i would think to be drugs.It was obvious that it was an exchange gone wrong.Moss takes the money and returns home not really telling his wife what he just saw and found.By early morning he had went back out to where he found the cash, to find that someone else is out there.He must avoid from bein seen by who i would say is the psychopathic killer.The novel goes on to talking about how things have changed.Bell went from breaking up fist fights to now handling multiple murders.

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness starts off with five men sitting on a ship talking about their past sailing experiances, and this is where we are introduced to who will be the main character Marlow. Marlow starts to talk about his days navigating a steam ship through the Congo River in Africa, and the story then switches its tense to the past when Marlow was in the Congo. Marlow arrives in Congo and has to wait for a boat to pick him up, and for the next few days he takes in his surrondings, and he sees the violence towards the native people. Then one day the cheif accountant of the Belgian Company, the company for which Marlow is working for, gives Marlow a message to tell a man named Mr. Kurtz. The message is that Marlow must tell him that everything is fine in the outter stations, since Kurtz is deep in the Congo and information does not travel easy through the jungle. Soon Marlow is picked up and arrives at the Central Station where he finds the steam ship he has to captian, and the whole bottom of it is torn out from rocks. It takes Marlow three months to repair his ship, and one day he is introduced to a man known as the "brickmaker", the brickmaker tells Marlow about Kurtz and makes Kurtz seem like a prodigy. Finally the repairs on Marlows ship are complete and he sets off for a two month trip. After the second day fogs desends upon the river and Marlow and his crew are forced to wait for it to lift before they continue, and while waiting they are attacked by natives, one of his men is killed while the other shoot at the natives with their rifles, after a while Marlow manages to scare the natives off my sounded the horn on the ship. The story so far is very eventfull and hopefully it will continue like this to make for a very good story.

the celebrant

The Celebrant is a great novel for true baseball fans.  The only book ever published by Eric Rolfe Greenberg, it is a true classic.  The novel goes into a jewish immigrant, Jack Kapp, and his job as a jeweler.  the novel also goes into Kapp's obsession of New York pitcher Christy Mathewson.  after seeing the amazing no hitter thrown by Mathewson on July 15, 1901, Kapp decides to make a ring in celebration of this game.  the ring eventually becomes a championship ring for the team and is known as a "celebrant" of Mathewson's accomplishments.  The novel shows how Kapp lives out his dream of being a baseball player who never made it.  As much as the book explores the dark times that were going on in baseball during the early 1900's.  Kapp's obsession of Mathewson and other geat players leads Kapp to discover the corruption in baseball due to betting.  Also with the Kapp family making rings for the perennial National League champions, the fortunes of Mathewson and the jewelry business climb together. But tragedy soon intervenes. Mathewson develops health problems related to his exposure to gas in World War I, while a Kapp brother, a gambler, becomes involved in the Black Sox scandal.  

Beloved

Beloved can be a confusing story at some times because it keeps going into flashbacks and memories that the characters are having, but for the most part it is easy to understand. Beloved starts off at the house which sethe( main character) lives in with her 18 year old daughter Denver and we learn that there is a spirt in the house, which Is that of beloved.(sethes baby that died). Paul D stops by Sethes house and he meets her daughter Denver. The two of them chat about many things from the past. Paul D is one of the brothers that came from Sweet home. This was a kentucky slave house, which sethe also comes from. At one point the house starts shaking ( from the spirit of beloved). When paul d gets to close with sethe the spirt must not like that. He takes sethe up to bed and denver gets mad because its like he took her mom away. Perhaps he has some feelings for the mom. Sethe and Pauld D are very close with eachother in bed. This makes them think of salvery and they recall earlier times in their life. Sethe thinks about her marriage with halle ( pauld d’s brother) and how it all happened. As the stories goes on an important flashback is recalled. Denver while outside recalls the time she saw her mom kneeling in prayer besides a white dress. Denver loves hearing the story behind this and we get to hear the story that is going through denvers head but from her mothers voice. It’s the story about how she almost died when carrying denver but then found a white woman , Amy who helped her through pregnancy. Paul D wants to live with Sethe for now, and questions whether or not Denver will mind. Denver a few days later asks Paul in a rude way basically how long he is staying for. She gets scolded for this and Paul remains. He takes them to a carnival to try to ease the tension. During the carnival all that sethe can picture is the 3 of them In the shawdows holding hands. Maybe they can become a family after all? On the way back from the carnival they notice a young woman outside near sethes house. She seems sick, so they invite her to come in. The girls name is beloved which seems to be very werid, sense that’s the name of the dead child. Denver takes care of her. The young woman (beloved ) becomes very clingy towards sethe;she keeps asking her many random questions and likes to hear stories. Paul D belives that there is a werid glow to beloved and begins to question her. Beloved ends up choking on the dinner and is taken upstairs. The adults then begin to talk about halle and how he mistreated sethe by leavin her. Lastly, the story goes into another flashback of how sethe gave birth to denver and how amy helped her out.

Slaughterhouse five

Slaughterhouse Five First Half

Kurt Vonnegut starts off by telling us how he is writing a book “Slaughterhouse Five” but is having trouble remembering what happened. He figures that if he goes to visit his old friend Bernhard V. O’Hare, together they can recollect enough war stories to allow Kurt to write his novel. So he gets there and is given a cold welcome by Bernhard’s wife. After much discussing with Bernhard about the war, Kurt finally finds out why Mary, Bernhard’s wife, as been acting so coldly towards him. She was worried that Kurt’s book would encourage war and in turn kill more young boys. So Kurt assured her it wouldn’t and they quickly became friends.

Billy Pilgrim starts off as a young scrawny boy who is getting ready to go off to war. However his father dies then his mother dies and finally his sister all as he goes off to war. He then finds him self surviving a plane crash and being rescued by three men. One of them is Roland Weary who is wearing many excessive layers of clothing to the point where even his face isn’t visible. He carries a triangular knife for a more gruesome death of the victim. Weary tells stories about how he used to trick people into being friends with him just to beat them up and make himself feel better. The other two men are scout infantry who by the way they act and control themselves clearly have much experience behind enemy lines. Weary is a bit nutty but thrives on being the hero by rescuing the deadbeat soldier Pilgrim. Pilgrim lets the three know several times that they can go on without him but Weary insists on keeping him. So eventually Pilgrim just loses consciousness and becomes “lost in time”.

Pilgrim just appears randomly in different points in his life ranging from his birth to and including his death. In this another side story begins where he goes back to where the aliens from Tralfamador abducted him and taught him about time and how these aliens view time in a completely different way. Instead of seeing things as happening one at a time like humans do, they see everything at once so there is never surprise. They he comes back to the soldiers and finally the two scouts ditch Pilgrim and Weary fearing that Weary and Pilgrim will slow them down. Weary hates Pilgrim from then on. They hear gunshots in the distance and the two scouts have been killed.

Pilgrim gets unstuck in time again and visits more time periods from his life. He again goes back to the Tralfamadorians and learns more about how they see things but looking at their books. He comes back to Weary just to be captured and thrown in a line of other captured soldiers.

The line of soldiers is taken for such a long walk that Weary’s feet are injured badly. They finally are forced onto trains and the narrator talks about how rough it was in the train having to deal with going to the bathroom, eating, and sleeping. People took turns sleeping and Billy happened to be the guy in charge of emptying the bathroom bucket. Weary was in the train in front of Billy and made the other people say they would get revenge on Billy Pilgrim if he died. And he did, along with Billy’s friend the hobo and another friend in the train across from him. They finally arrive to the camp where a bunch of Russians have cleaned up the place and everyone is given a jacket. Billy’s just so happens to be very feminine which he finds out later was just so he could be made fun of. He ends up in a doctors office being consoled by a friend who he knows is going to die.

Then he has another flashback. It is after the war and he is in the mental ward and his mother visits. He feels so bad that she put so much effort into bringing him up and he doesn’t even want to be alive. Then his rich fat fiancé visits and he still can’t believe that he was so desperate that he proposed to her. She however clearly cares about him and tries to help him but he just denies her saying he has what he needs.