Archives for February 2014

Analysing characters

February 25, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to study and understand fictional characters

Analysing characters

When studying literature, you will be asked to write about the characters in stories, plays, and novels. Most people find it easy to describe characters – that is, what they look like and what they do in the story. But it is much more difficult to analyse them. That’s because analysing characters in fiction requires not only insight into human behaviour but also the ability to make moral assessments about their psychology, motivations, and the consequences of their behaviour. This skill distinguishes an academic study of literature from casual leisure reading.

You need to know how fictional characters have been constructed by the author. After all, the very nature of a literary character is that it is a fictional construct. It’s an account of somebody who doesn’t exist in real life, but has been created by words written on paper. The character is imaginary, but if the author has been successful, we think of these characters as if they were real people. This attitude is described as a ‘suspension of disbelief’: that is, we are temporarily willing to believe that the character and the story are like real people.

Eugene Onegin

Character analysis also requires the ability to understand the complex relationship between fiction and real life – a skill which requires a fairly mature reading experience. Fortunately, most people have been exposed to fictional narratives from an early age, and will already be experienced readers by the time they are asked to make such analyses.

What is a fictional character?

A fictional character is somebody in an imaginative literary work created by an author. The character could be Peter Rabbit, David Copperfield, Macbeth, or Madame Bovary. In other media, it could be Luke Skywalker (feature film), Donald Duck (cartoon), Dan Dare (comic), Super Mario (computer game), or someone from The Archers (radio).

What we can know about a character in fiction depends almost entirely on what the author decides to tell us. Authors normally create characters using any number of devices. They might reveal to us –

their name
their physical appearance
how they dress
how they behave
what they think and feel
what they say

The composition of a character

Authors are at liberty to combine these elements in whatever way they choose. They may give different levels of emphasis to any of these options. There are no fixed rules they must follow, but the outcome must be a coherent piece of characterisation.

Charles Dickens for instance went to a lot of trouble to give his characters unusual and memorable names – Uriah Heep, Lady Honoria Deadlock, Josia Tulkinghorn, and Inspector Bucket for instance. At the other extreme, the Czech writer Franz Kafka reduced his most famous protagonist to the single letter K, with no first name or surname at all.

Some characters are memorable because of the way they are depicted visually. For instance, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations has shut herself away in an old house for years and years wearing the wedding dress she wore on the day she was jilted at the altar. She is described as a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton.

The fictional character might have a peculiar way of speaking, or a physical habit that becomes easily recognisable. Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s play The Rivals is memorable because she often uses the wrong word in her statements. She says “promise to forget this fellow – to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory” when of course she means obliterate. This characteristic is so easily recognisable that her name has been attached to that particular mis-use of language ever since – malapropism.

The good thing about this fictional technique is that it helps to fix the character in the audience’s mind. Its weakness as a technique is that it can reduce the character to no more than a verbal tic.

Some fictional characters are not given any name at all, and we know nothing about their appearance. Fyodor Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground features a character whose name we don’t know, and whose appearance is never described. All we are told is what the character thinks – which is a torrent of existential rage against the world.

So – there are no fixed rules for the creation of fictional characters. Authors are free to tell us anything they wish about the characters they create. As readers we can merely hope that they are at least convincing or at best memorable. However, you need to be able to explain the mechanisms used to achieve this effect.

How to analyse a character

You can think of character analysis as a three part process. If you are a beginner, it will be safest to write about these parts separately. If you are more experienced, the parts may be combined – though you will still need to give your writing some structure.

First – identify the character
Second – describe the character
Third – explain the character

Identify

In the first part of the process you are merely choosing the character you wish to write about. In many literary studies courses the character will be chosen for you by a question set for an essay or term paper. It is important to choose a character who is genuinely significant and who plays a dramatic part in the story.

Part of identifying a character is knowing their importance in the story. You will probably have no difficulty in distinguishing important characters (the protagonist or most significant character for instance) from lesser or secondary characters.

Describe

In the second part of the process you are ‘locating’ the character within the story and giving an overview of what part they play in its events. The term ‘describe’ implies that you can consider the character in isolation, and give a surface account of their presence in the story. You do not have to look under the surface to discuss any of their psychological motivation at this stage.

Explain

In the third part you will give an account of the character in relation to other people in the story or the play. You should explain what motivates the character, what the significance of their actions might be, and how they relate to other characters in the story or the theme of the work in general. At this stage you might also say something about their role in the story from an artistic point of view. That is, the role of the character in relationship to the events of the narrative.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and technical terms you need when making a study of stories and novels. It shows you how to understand literary analysis by explaining its elements one at a time, then showing them at work in short stories which are reproduced as part of the book. Topics covered include – setting, characters, story, point of view, symbolism, narrators, theme, construction, metaphors, irony, prose style, tone, and interpretation. The book also contains self-assessment exercises, so you can check your understanding of each topic. Best-selling title, written by the author of these web pages.

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Character analysis – example

Identify

Joe Gargery in Great Expectations is very significant as a character. He acts as a formative influence on Pip; he is unwavering in his support for him throughout the novel; and he is instrumental in rescuing Pip from moral shoddiness in the final parts of the novel.

Describe

Joe is married to Pip’s elder sister and is therefore technically his brother-in-law; but he acts very much as a protective father-figure during Pip’s early life. Joe is naive, sometimes unconsciously comic, hard working and loving.

Explain

Joe represents the simple good nature that Dickens contrasts with Pip’s self-seeking complexity. His role as a constant in Pip’s life throws into sharp relief Pip’s plunge into increasing bad faith. The character of Joe is used as a fixed point by which we can trace Pip’s downfall and finally his moral redemption and recovery. Joe is also a comic foil against Mrs Joe’s violent behaviour as his termagant wife.

There is also a complex element in Joe’s child-like characterisation in relation to his wife Mrs Joe. He tolerates and never challenges his wife’s abusive behaviour towards both himself and her young brother Pip.

Narrative perspective

Thus far we have basic information about a fictional character – which we might call characteristics. But in addition, the author might provide any of the following information as well.

what the author thinks about them
what other characters think about them
what happens to them

This does not obtain so much in plays, where the author normally prescribes the appearance of characters and what they say – but nothing else. The point of view or perspective in this case is provided by the director of the play, in deciding how the play will be presented and how the characters will behave on stage.

In narrative fiction (novels and stories) you are likely to be presented with information about characters from a number of different sources – from the author, from other characters, possibly from a narrator, and of course from the characters themselves. Not all these items of information carry equal weight, and you will need to make careful discriminations in making your judgements.

Stock characters

What is a stock character? It’s a fictional creation that is a recognisable type who occurs in lots of other stories. This is what’s called a stereotype. Here are some examples you will recognise:

the miser
the mysterious stranger
the wicked stepmother
the absent-minded professor
the whore with a heart of gold
the damsel in distress
the hard boiled detective
the femme fatale
the gentleman thief

New stereotypes are being created all the time – and may be generated by new genres of fiction from film, television, and other media, as well as from the traditional literary genres of story, novel, and play.

Two and three-dimensional characters

The term two-dimensional character is used as an expression of negative criticism to label a character who always behaves in the same way, and does not change or grow as a result of the events in the story. They are sometimes referred to as cardboard or flat characters – as being flimsy, undeveloped, and not particularly credible.

It is a term used in contradistinction to a three-dimensional character which is used to describe fictional characters who have the depth and complexities of real human beings, and are therefore deemed more successful creations.

This ‘third’ dimension might be the capacity to change as a result of events in the story; it might be the successful depiction of contradictory beliefs and behaviour; or it might be acting on an irrational impulse – something which human beings are doing all the time.

For instance, in A Tale of Two Cities Sydney Carton is a cynical and alcoholic barrister who acts in a self-indulgent and disreputable manner throughout the majority of the novel. But at the end of story he takes another man’s place at the guillotine – an act of self-sacrifice which atones for all his past wrongdoings. Dickens makes the change of character credible, and Carton’s last words (his thoughts) have become famous: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Dubious characters

Successfully realised characters are not necessarily likeable or even decent. Authors are at liberty to create characters who are flawed, and they might still be attractive or memorable..

Fagin in Oliver Twist is a grizzly old rogue who runs a children’s criminal gang. He mistreats the members of the gang, tells lies, and is partly responsible for the death of an innocent woman (Nancy). Despite all these negative characteristics, he is so vividly portrayed by Dickens that he remains a standout and very memorable figure in the novel.

Some characters might be likeable even though they commit reprehensible acts. Vladimir Nabokov’s protagonist Humbert Humbert in Lolita is attractively clever and very amusing, even though he abducts and sexually abuses a teenage girl and murders his rival, Claire Quilty. But the first-person account of events Humbert delivers is so full of jokes and witty observations of American life, that we tend to overlook his flaws.

Providing evidence

A detailed character analysis depends on a close reading of the text, coupled with an understanding of the character. It also requires evidence drawn from the text to support any argument about the character.

It is not enough to say that you don’t like a character, or disapprove of something they do in the story. What you are doing is closer to showing that you understand what the author is trying to demonstrate to the reader. This is the reason that it is necessary to understand the literary techniques by which characters are created.

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Bunner Sisters

February 4, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Bunner Sisters was written in 1891, but wasn’t published until 1916 in Edith Wharton’s collection of short fiction Xingu and Other Stories. Technically, it has very strong claims to be classified as a novella, rather than a short story, but it is usually listed with her shorter works to keep it separate from the novels.

Old New York

Bunner Sisters – critical commentary

Literary naturalism

There was a literary vogue towards the end of the nineteenth century for naturalism – which is characterised by a concentration on everyday, unheroic subjects, often seeking to expose the poverty and misery of existence in contrast to the romantic and heroic treatment of life in traditional fiction. Naturalism as a literary mode was underpinned by a belief in determinism – that social conditions and heredity were the primary forces shaping human character. It was also strongly influenced by two other important philosophic features of late nineteenth century society – the decline of religious belief and the powerful influence of Darwinism and its popular manifestation in the idea of ‘the survival of the fittest’.

Both of these ideas led the adherents of naturalism to emphasise a pessimistic view of life, and they also took the opportunity to expose the harsher and degenerate sides of society, including poverty, crime, prostitution, and corruption in general. There was also a marked tendency amongst naturalistic works to focus on the life of big cities. Writers who epitomised this literary trend included Emile Zola (France), Theodore Dreiser (USA), Stephen Crane (USA) and George Gissing (UK) – all of whom were at the height of their fame when Edith Wharton started writing.

Bunner Sisters certainly includes many of these ideas. Although it seems to begin in a mildly satirical manner, its trajectory is grimly pessimistic as things go from bad to worse in the two sisters’ lives. Their business slowly dries up; they are preyed upon by a man who turns out to be an opium addict; and he eventually ruins Evelina’s life, which in turn leaves Ann Eliza destitute.

These naturalistic tendencies are worth noting, because they were still present in Edith Wharton’s work when she came to write her first major novel, The House of Mirth in 1905. Lily Bart falls from a much greater social height than Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner, but she ends in a similar fashion – destitute, ill, and exhausted with self-sacrifice.

Bunner Sisters – study resources

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

Bunner Sisters – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

Bunner Sisters – AudioBook format at librivox

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

Bunner Sisters – plot summary

Part I. Ageing sisters Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner maintain a millinery shop in a seedy and run down area of New York. They live in straightened circumstances, and on the occasion of Evelina’s birthday, her sister buys her a cheap clock.

Part II. She has bought the clock from an equally run down shop in the neighbourhood run by bachelor Herman Ramay, who she decides to pursue when the clock stops working. She goes to the local market, hoping to meet him there, but doesn’t. A lifetime of co-operative self-sacrifice and renunciation begins to crumble as the two women secretly become competetive regarding Mr Ramay.

Part III. Mr Ramay calls to check the clock they have bought, but nothing transpires from the visit.

Part IV. They then entertain Miss Mellins, a dressmaker from upstairs, whereupon Mr Ramay visits again. Ann Eliza is jealously concerned that he is visiting to see her younger sister.

Part V. Mr Ramay visits more frequently, but divides his time there between long silences and lengthy autobiographical anecdotes. He takes Evelina to a stereopticon; spring arrives; and he invites them both to Central Park, along with Miss Mellins. Ann Eliza is forbearing on her sister’s behalf.

Part VI. The sisters wish to transfer their meagre earnings into another bank. Ann Eliza calls for advice on Mr Ramay, who seems to have been ill.

Part VII. Mr Ramay takes them on an excursion to his friend Mrs Hochmuller in Hoboken. Over dinner they discuss Mr Ramay’s illness – which he denies. Then Evelina and Mr Ramay go for a walk in the countryside. Shortly afterwards Mr Ramay calls to the shop and proposes marriage to Ann Eliza, but she tells him she cannot think of marrying. She is secretly ecstatic at this major event in her life, and disappointed that she cannot reveal it to her sister.

Part VIII. Mr Ramay then goes on an excursion with Evelina, who returns to announce that she is engaged to Mr Ramay. Ann Eliza prepares herself for being left alone when her sister moves to live at Mr Ramay’s shop. However, Mr Ramay gets the offer of a job in St Louis, though he does not have enough money to risk transferring there. Ann Eliza gives her sister her half of their joint savings.

Part IX. Left on her own, Ann Eliza feels very lonely, and Evelina writes from St Louis to say that she is lonely because Mr Ramay is out at work all day. Then the letters cease, and Ann Eliza learns that Mr Ramay has been dismissed by his employers. She cannot afford to visit St Louis and look for her sister, and meanwhile the business goes downhill.

Part X. Anna goes to seek help from Mrs Hochmuller in Hoboken, but when she gets there she discovers that Mrs Hochmuller left some time before. She contracts fever as a result of the journey and is in bed for over a week. When she recovers she visits Mr Ramay’s old employers, only to be told that he was dismissed for taking drugs.

Part XI. Months pass by, then one day Evelina suddenly appear at the shop. She is in a very bad way, and recounts her tale of Mr Ramay’s opium addiction, the birth and death of her child, and Ramay’s running away with young Linda Hochmuller. Evelina was reduced to begging in the streets.

Part XII. Evelina continues to be very ill, and Anna has to borrow money from Miss Mellins to pay the doctor’s bill. Anna loses her faith in Providence and feels that self-sacrifice does not automatically transfer good or benefit to its intended recipient. The doctor recommends hospital for Evelina, but Anna prefers to keep her at home. Evelina reveals that during her troubles she has converted to Catholicism.

Part XIII. Evelina gets steadily worse (with consumption) and believes her Catholic faith will permit her to be reunited with her baby in heaven. When Evelina dies, Anna gives up the shop, sells the last of her effects, and faces a bleak and unknown future.

Bunner Sisters – principal characters

Ann Eliza Bunner	elder sister in a millinery shop
Evelina Bunner	her younger sister
Miss Mellins	their upstairs neighbour, a dressmaker
Herman Ramay	a German immigrant clock-maker
Mrs Hochmuller	washerwoman friend of Ramay
Linda Hochmuller	her young daughter

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

The Custom of the Country (1913) is Edith Wharton’s satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father’s money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by disillusion. This is a study of modern ambition and materialism written a hundred years before its time.
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The House of Mirth (1905) is the story of Lily Bart, who is beautiful, poor, and still unmarried at twenty-nine. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her. The book is a disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton’s generation. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways that transform the traditional novel of manners into an arresting modern document of cultural anthropology.
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Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

The Short Stories of Edith Wharton
This is an old-fashioned but excellently detailed site listing the publication details of all Edith Wharton’s eighty-six short stories – with links to digital versions available free on line.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton at Fantastic Fiction
A compilation which purports to be a complete bibliography, arranged as novels, collections, non-fiction, anthologies, short stories, letters, and commentaries – but is largely links to book-selling sites, which however contain some hidden gems.

Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

How to write a personal statement

February 26, 2014 by Roy Johnson

making a good impression on paper

What is a personal statement?

A personal statement is an account of your own qualities, skills, and ambitions which is made to accompany job applications, funding bids, sponsorship requests, and applications for a place in further or higher education.

Think of it as being like a personal introduction, presenting yourself to an individual or an organization, and putting a human personality to a formal request.

do yours with a word-processor

A personal statement is separate from your curriculum vitae (CV) which lists your formal qualifications and your previous experience.

A personal statement is most commonly required in the UK by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) when you are applying for a place at a university.

The personal statement is where you can tell your preferred universities why they should offer you a place on the course you have chosen.

Who will read a personal statement?

The reader of your statement will be a potential employer, a personnel manager, or an admissions tutor in your chosen faculty of study – arts, science, or technology.

The admissions tutor might be a lecturer on your chosen course (if you are lucky). He or she will decide whether to offer you a place on the course or an interview, based on the information you have written on the form.

First they will look at your academic achievements and decide whether you seem capable of completing their course.

Then they will read your personal statement, and judge whether you are the kind of person who has the motivation and personality to complete the course successfully.

First impressions

Your personal statement is an opportunity to make a positive impression. You will need to convince them that you are also a person who should be accepted on the course or considered for employment.

You need to show the reader that you are:

able to express the reasons for your choice of course
motivated, and committed to your subject
aware of your career options and have some clear ambitions
somebody who has outside interests, apart from your studies

You may be applying to several different universities in the hope of securing a place. But your personal statement should not be identical in each case. You need to tailor the statement to your chosen subject of study, or the ethos of the institution.

The same would be true of a personal statement made in conjunction with a job application. You’re trying to convince that particular employer that you are suitable for the position and interested in working for the company.

The same would be true if you were applying for a bursary, a grant, or funding of some kind. Your personal statement confirms that there is a fully rounded human being making the application. It is also an opportunity to say what you would do with the funding if it were granted.

Interviews

If the university or the employer does not interview prospective applicants, then a personal statement is your only chance to convince them to accept you.

Many institutions and employers no longer conduct interviews with all prospective applicants, because of the costs involved. They make a preliminary choice by skim reading through written applications, and only interview the few they select on written evidence.

If you are offered an interview, the interviewers will use the personal statement as a starting point for the questions they ask you. So it’s important for your statement to be interesting, fresh, and honest.

If you’ve written something which isn’t true, you’re likely to become confused if you’re asked a question about it at the interview.

Warning

There are lots of web sites that show you examples of personal statements. Many of them ask you to pay for this service. You should avoid using these services because they may encourage you to do two things:

pay to see other people’s personal statements
copy parts of other peoples statements instead of writing your own original words

It’s far better to write your own statement, honestly and imaginatively. Everyone is different, and you should be proud of your achievements and aspirations, and pleased to express them.

You can apply online using the UCAS Apply system – but you should prepare all your information in advance.

Use the UCAS guidelines if necessary.

How to write the personal statement

Don’t imagine you can sit down and write your personal statement in one attempt. First you need to plan the structure of the statement, and then generate its content in several drafts.

Planning

Sit down and make a list of all the general areas you might wish to cover in your statement. The list might include items such as:

hobbies
personal achievements
part-time jobs
life skills
social activities
special interests

If the personal statement is to accompany a curriculum vitae (CV) do not list your formal educational qualifications or a record of your employment.

These items should be arranged to create a clear structure. Show your first ideas to family and friends. They might think of skills or advantages that you possess but have taken for granted or forgotten.

Here are some general points about generating ideas for writing your personal statement.

Multiple drafts

Do it all your preliminary writing in rough first, and be prepared to do two or three versions before you get the right combination of words.

Do not be tempted to cut and paste materials off the Internet. There are now plagiarism checkers which will spot text that has been copied from somewhere else.

If you are applying to university, try to link your hobbies and experience(s) to the courses you are applying for. You need to show why you are interested in your chosen subject.

Write the final draft in short clear sentences, and use short paragraphs that make the content easy to read. Use sub-titles that indicate clearly what each section is about.

When you have produced your final draft – no matter how long it has taken – always check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation before submitting the final document.

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MLA Style Guide

February 24, 2014 by Roy Johnson

What is the MLA Style Guide?

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association (of America). Its style manual has the full title MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. This presents a full set of protocols for the writing and presentation of documents and research in the humanities (literature, languages, media studies, and cultural studies). The guide and its standards are in general use throughout north America and Europe.

The guide does not cover the protocols used in disciplines such as history, sociology, philosophy, or sciences. These use either the Chicago Manual of Style or the Harvard System of referencing.

In the notes which follow, the terms citation (US usage) and referencing (UK usage) are used interchangeably.

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What does the MLA Style Guide do?

The MLA Style Guide offers a complete set of standards showing you how to present academic writing and research. These standards are not questions of correct or incorrect writing: they are merely a coherent system which ensure consistency and rigour in the presentation of academic writing. The standards show you how to –

embed quotations
cite secondary sources
give bibliographic references
present names and titles
avoid plagiarism
cite electronic sources

How does the MLA Style Guide work?

The MLA citation style uses a simple two-part system for citing sources. When you refer to or quote from a secondary source within your work, you provide a citation which points to an alphabetical list of Works Cited that appears at the end of the essay or term paper. The citation is an abbreviation given in brackets (Smith 128) and the full details of this source are listed at the end of your work. This example refers to page 128 in work written by someone called Smith.

This system of referencing identifies and credits the sources you have used in the essay. It allows someone reading the essay to identify and if necessary consult these secondary sources.

References within your text

In MLA style, you place references to secondary sources in the essay to briefly identify them and enable readers to find them in the list of Works Cited. These references should be kept as brief and as clear as possible.

Give only the minimum information needed to identify a source. The author’s last name and a page reference are usually sufficient. Example – (Barber 45).

Place the reference as close as possible to its source, preferably where a pause would naturally occur, which is often at the end of a sentence.

Information in the brackets should not repeat information given in the text. If you include an author’s name in a sentence, you don’t need to repeat it in your reference.

The reference should precede the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase that contains the cited material.

Electronic and online sources are cited just like print resources in references. If an online source lacks page numbers, omit numbers from the bracketed references.

Examples

Author’s name in text	Browning has expressed this concern (122-25).
Author’s name in reference	This concern has been expressed (Browning 122-25).
Multiple authors	This hypothesis has proved very persuasive (Bradley, Morgan, and Smith 46).
Two works cited	(Beetham 68; Covington 34)
Volumes and pages	Robinson 3: 14-19
Corporate authors	(United Nations, Economic Report 51-56)
Online sources	Fetting, pars. 5-8)

List of Works Cited

References cited in the text of an essay or a research paper must appear at the end of your work in a list of Works Cited. This is also known as a bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that has been used in your work.

Arrange the entries in alphabetical order of the authors’ last names (surnames), or by the title for any sources without authors.

Capitalize the first word and all other principal words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the “to” in infinitives. (The Angel at the Grave)

The titles of books and journals should be shown in italics. Choose a font in which the italic style contrasts clearly with the regular style.

Shorten the publisher’s name. For example, omit articles, business abbreviations (Co., Inc.), and descriptive words (Press, Publisher).

When multiple publishers are listed, include all of them, placing a semicolon between each.

When more than one city is listed for the same publisher, use only the first city.

Use the conjunction ‘and’, not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a ‘hanging indent’.

Bibliographic description

References to an entire book should include the following elements:

author(s) or editor(s)
complete title
edition, if indicated
place of publication
shortened name of publisher
date of publication
medium of publication

The basic format

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

One author

Nabokov, Vladimir. Strong Opinions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973. Print.

Another work, same author

—. Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited. New York: Knopf, 1999. Print.

Two authors

Cresswell, Susan, and Charles Hoffman. Theaters of Experiment. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. Print.

Three authors

Loewen, Thomas, Bentham Ginsberg, and Stuart Jacks. Analyzing Democratic Government. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1994. Print.

More than three authors

Sander, Jefferton et al. Beyond the Utility Principle. London: Heinemann, 1993. Print.

Editor (anthology or collection of essays)

Hillman, Charles, and Margery Hamilton, eds. Defining Milton’s Poetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

No author or editor

The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. 2014 ed. London: A and C Black. 2014. Print

Articles in books

Jones, Josephine Teresa. “Within These Walls.” Feminism and its Relation to Architecture. Ed. Maureen Harrington. New York: Lexington Books, 2010. 109-24. Print.

Reprinted article

Huntford, Thomas. “The Misreading of Ken Kesey.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 4.3 (1985): 30-43. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carleen Rilmont. Vol. 61. Detroit: Gale, 1990. 308-10. Print.

Articles or entries from reference books

If the article or entry is signed, put the author’s name first; if it is unsigned, give the title first. For well-known reference works, it is not necessary to include full publication information. Include only the title of the reference source, edition, and date of publication.

Dictionary entry

“Hostages.” Def. 1a. Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 1993. Print.

Encyclopedia entry

Merrington, Barbara. “Cooking with Gas.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Ed. Andrew F. Smith. Vol. 2. 2004. Print.

Articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers

References to periodical articles must include the following elements:

author(s)
article title
publication title
volume number
publication date
inclusive page numbers
medium of publication

Issue numbers should be stated as decimals to a given volume number. For instance, the number 25.4 refers to Volume 25, issue 4. When citing newspapers, it is important to specify the edition used (early ed. or late ed.) because different editions of a newspaper might contain different material.

Journal article, one author

Mentone-Cassidy, David. “Beyond Boundaries: Reaching Multi-Cultural Development.” Journal of Tourism Research 37.4 (2010): 141-63. Print.

Journal article, two authors

Langton, Jennifer, and Warren Furst. “Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Sharing Medical Resources.” International Journal of Hospital Management 29.2 (2010): 261-7. Print.

Magazine article

Keinster, Donald A. “Corporate Greed: The New Economics.” Vanity Fair 23 Nov. 2012: 84-91. Print.

Newspaper article, no author

“American Independence Day: The View from England.” The Guardian 31 May 2012, 16. Print.

Film, video, or audio recordings

Film

Manhattan. Dir. Woody Allen. 1979. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1991.

Sound recording

Bob Dylan. Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

Specific song

Bob Dylan. “Desolation Row.” Highway 61 Revisited. Columbia / Sony, 2004. CD.

CD-ROM

Citations should include the medium of the electronic publication (CD-ROM), the name of the vendor that made the material available on CD-ROM, and publications dates for the version used, if relevant.

“Matrimony.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. CD-ROM. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. Multimedia, 2014.

Citing online sources

References to online sources, like those for printed sources, should provide the information that both identifies a source and allows it to be located and retrieved again.

All references should include the medium of publication (Web) and the date the content was viewed.

If the source is difficult to locate, you should list the complete Web address (URL) within angle brackets after the date. In many cases, it is also necessary to identify the Web site or the database that has made the material available on line.

There are currently no fixed standards governing the organization and presentation of online publications. Consequently, the information that is available can vary widely from one resource to another. In general, references to online works require more information than references to print sources.

For instance, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is being edited and updated all the time – so in some instances it might be necessary to record not only the date of an entry being visited, but even the time of day.

See sections 5.6.1-4 in the MLA Handbook for more complete information on creating references to online sources.

Web page

This example includes the optional URL. All other examples below use the shorter citation format.

Cornell University Library. ‘Introduction to Research’. Cornell University Library. Cornell University, 2009. Web. 19 June 2009 <http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/intro>.

Personal web site

If a work is untitled, you may use a genre label such as Home page, Introduction, etc.

Remington, Gregory. Home page. Web. 16 Nov. 2008.

Entry in an online encyclopedia

‘Epstein, Jacob’. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999. Web. 27 Apr. 2009.

Article from a less familiar online reference book

Norton, John S. ‘European History and Islam’. Encyclopedia the Muslim World. Ed. Richard C. Martin. New York: Macmillan Reference-Thomson/Gale, 2004. Web. 4 July 2009.

Article in an online periodical

If pagination is unavailable or is not continuous, use n. pag. in place of the page numbers.

Chatterton, Heather. ‘The Epidemic in Saratoga’. Salon 19 Feb. 1999: n. pag. Web. 12 July 1999.

Article in a full-text journal accessed from a database

Valentino, Jose Antonio. ‘The Other Side of Facebook’. New Yorker 86.28 (2010): 54-63. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Jan. 2011.

Online book with print information

Henderson, Robert. South of Boston. 2nd ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1915. Google Books. Web. 30 June 2009.

The examples of MLA style and format listed on this page include many of the most common types of sources used in academic research. For additional examples and more detailed information about MLA citation style, refer to the following resources:

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print. [Amazon UK]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon US]

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print. [Amazon UK]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon US]

The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors and Publishers. 16th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print. [Amazon UK]

More on How-To
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Souls Belated

February 18, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Souls Belated was first published in the collection of stories The Greater Inclination (1899). It was one of the first of many stories Edith Wharton wrote on the subject of divorce. She did not dissolve her own marriage to her husband Edward (‘Teddy’) Wharton until much later in 1912, but the subject was very much a live social issue at that time. Indeed she wrote a comic version of divorce and its consequences in another story The Other Two published in 1904.

Souls Belated – critical commentary

The principal irony in Souls Belated is that an American man and his married but not-yet-divorced lover are travelling in Europe where they meet an English couple who are doing the same thing. Not a great deal is made of this parallel except that it emphasises how those people who flout the conventions of upper-class society are forced to move outside it. Both couples are hiding from the censure of their social group in a country where they are not so well known.

Lydia is escaping from the stifling conventions of upper-class New York (which models itself on traditional English snobberies and social distinctions). She thinks these restrictions destroy an individual’s possibility of intimacy with another person. Later, in an apparent volte face, she comes to think that ironically upper-class marriage actually helps people to stay emotionally apart from each other because of the social obligations it entails – ‘children, duties, visits, bores, relations’.

She knows that conventional upper-class marriage is stifling; she wishes to live freely with the man she loves; but she can only do so by staying outside polite society, or by being married to him – because that society will not tolerate any other form of arrangement between individuals. She is unable to find a solution to her dilemma, and that is possibly why the story ends with her problem and her relationship with Ralph Garrett unresolved.

Souls Belated – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

Souls Belated – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

Souls Belated – AudioBook format at Gutenberg

Souls Belated – paperback edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

Souls Belated – plot summary

Part I Lydia Tillotson has been oppressed and bored by her marriage to a very conventional New York businessman, who still lives with his controlling mother. She has fallen in love with Ralph Garrett and left her marriage to live freely with him, away from American society. Whilst in Italy she receives notice that her husband has filed for divorce. Garrett thinks they should follow society’s conventions and get married. She argues that they should preserve the purity of their relationship by remaining single.

Part II They stay in a hotel in the Italian lakes where social life is very strictly controlled by snobbish upper-class English visitors, notably Lady Susan Condit. The social group within the hotel have already ostracised a newly arrived couple, the Lintons.

Part III Lydia is approached privately by Mrs Linton, who reveals that she is in fact Mrs Lodge, travelling incognito and carrying on an intrigue with Lord Trevanna. She has guessed that Lydia is in a similar position and threatens to reveal the fact unless she helps her.

Part IV When Lydia reveals this to Ralph, he informs her that Mrs Cope has just received a message containing what is presumed to be her divorce, and has left the hotel precipitately. Lydia reverses her views and thinks that marriage is a good institution, but only for keeping people apart – because it forces them to busy themselves with social duties. She also argues to Ralph that because she loves him, she needs to leave him.

Part V Next day she leaves the hotel early in the morning and goes down to the lakeside steamer. Ralph watches her from his room – but she turns back and doesn’t leave.

Principal characters

Lydia Tillotson	a married American woman
Ralph Gannett	her lover, an American would-be writer
Mr Linton	an English guest at the hotel – actually Lord Travenna (22)
Mrs Linton	an English grande dame guest at the hotel – actually Mrs Cope
Lady Susan Condit	an English social arbiter at the hotel

first edition – cover design by Berkeley Updike

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Angel at the Grave

February 19, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Angel at the Grave first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine in February 1901 and was collected in Edith Wharton’s compilation of short stories Crucial Instances published later the same year. Scribner’s was a New York company which went on to present the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Many of its authors have been Pulitzer Prizewinners – including Edith Wharton herself.

cover design by Parish Maxfield

The Angel at the Grave – critical commentary

This is a story which is poised very delicately between a tragedy of wasted spirit and a redemptive tale of long-suffering patience finally rewarded. Paulina Anson is a figure of female self-sacrifice. She rejects the early offer of love from Hewlett Winsloe, and chooses to remain at home rather than go to New York. The house which symbolises the life and work of her grandfather starts out as a place of comfort for her, but gradually becomes a living tomb. Even her creative efforts in writing her grandfather’s biography come to nothing, and eventually she feels that her life has been wasted.

The success of the redemptive ending depends a great deal on its credibility. Corby intends to write an article commenting on Anson’s pamphlet on the amphioxus, which demonstrates missing evolutionary links between the invertebrate and the vertebrate world. We are expected to believe that this will restore interest in Anson’s work, possibly make Corby famous, and will validate Paulina’s long-unrewarded dedication to her grandfather. This is rather a lot to ask, and any idea that there might be some romantic link between the two believers (‘she looked as though youth had touched her on the lips’) should be tempered by the observation that Paulina is by this stage of the tale a middle-aged woman and Corby a ‘fresh-eyed sanguine youth’.

The Angel at the Grave – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Angel at the Grave – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Angel at the Grave – eBook format

The Angel at the Grave – hardback edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Angel at the Grave – plot summary

Part I Paulina Anson has grown up in the New England house of her grandfather, a celebrated Transcendentalist philosopher. She is the only member of the family who can read and understand his works. When a young New York scholar visits the house and marriage seems a possibility, she turns him down because she refuses to go to New York.

Part II She devotes herself to the house and to the memory and work of her grandfather. By the age of forty she has written his definitive biography, but when she takes the manuscript to his publisher they tell her there is no longer any public interest in his work. She then tries to understand how and why her grandfather’s reputation has faded when those of his contemporaries (Emerson and Hawthorne) remain alive. She concludes in despair that both she and her grandfather have wasted their lives.

Part III Subsequently, she is visited by a young scholar George Corby who wants to write an article on one of Anson’s early anatomical discoveries. When Paulina produces the long-forgotten pamphlet from the archives, Corby is ecstatic. She warns him that she has ruined her life guarding her grandfather’s legacy – but he argues that by staying in the house she has saved from oblivion a work which will now bring his reputation back to life.

The Angel at the Grave – main characters

Orestes Anson	a New England transcendentalist philosopher
Paulina Anson	his grand-daughter
George Corby	a young researcher
Hewlett Winsloe	a young man and suitor to Paulina

Edith Wharton’s writing

Other works by Edith Wharton

The Reef deals with three topics with which Edith Wharton herself was intimately acquainted at the period of its composition – unhappy marriage, divorce, and the discovery of sensual pleasures. The setting is a country chateau in France where diplomat George Darrow has arrived from America, hoping to marry the beautiful widow Anna Leith. But a young woman employed as governess to Anna’s daughter proves to be someone he met briefly in the past and has fallen in love with him. She also becomes engaged to Anna’s stepson. The result is a quadrangle of tensions and suspicions about who knows what about whom. And the outcome is not what you might imagine.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
Buy the book from Amazon US

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Last Asset

February 20, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Last Asset first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine for August 1904. It was one of many stories Edith Wharton wrote with the subject of divorce in the background. She did not dissolve her own marriage to her husband Edward until much later in 1912, but the topic was very much a live social problem at that time. She had already explored the issue in Souls Belated (1899) and she had produced a comic version of divorce and its consequences in The Other Two published earlier the same year in February 1904.

cover design by Parish Maxfield

The Last Asset – critical commentary

This is a mildly humorous and bitter-sweet story of social outcasts unscrupulously re-integrating themselves with society via a carefully arranged marriage. Mrs Newell is separated (but not divorced) from a husband who has been impoverished by her extravagance. He lives in down-at-heel seclusion in a sleazy Parisian back street.

She moves between one upper-class group and another, sponging on their generosity. But she has run out of friends, so she uses her daughter as a pawn in a game of social reclamation. She uses Garnett, and he in turn recruits her estranged husband (‘the last asset’) to make sure the marriage takes place.

But Mrs Newell needs a dowry for her daughter who will be married to a French aristocrat. The money is provided by her lover Schenkelderff, who appears to be a Jewish roué, and who also wishes to be accepted into polite society after being excluded from it following a money-lending scandal which ended in someone’s suicide. He is a double outsider, because of his race and his dubious behavior and shady past.

So Garnett is drawn into Mrs Newell’s scheme – as is her long-suffering husband, who ruefully remarks ‘One way or another, my wife always gets what she wants’. Mrs Newell at the end of the story is related by her daughter’s marriage to a French aristocrat with relatives in England – so she is back in the highest echelons of society. But the darker side to this Balzacian view of voracious social climbing is tinged with the mild aura of redemption in Garnett’s vision of the shabby father in his over-sized and rented morning suit, re-united with his beloved daughter, and giving her away at the altar to a man she loves.

The Last Asset – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Last Asset – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Last Asset – Kindle edition

The Last Asset – paperback edition

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Last Asset – story synopsis

Part I Paul Garnett has made the acquaintance of a quasi-philosophic fellow American in a cheap Parisian restaurant. The man preaches a morality of expecting very little in life – and tolerating the consequences.

Part II Garnett has received a note from Mrs Newell to say that she is at the Ritz. She is a social parasite who lives recklessly at other people’s expense. She also has an undistinguished daughter Hermione who lives very much in her mother’s shadow. Garnett suspects that Mrs Newell might have run out of friends in London.

Part III When he visits her, Mrs Newell announces that Hermione is to marry a French aristocrat. She wants Garnett to locate her estranged husband and persuade him to attend the marriage ceremony – otherwise the Count’s family will call off the match.

Part IV At dinner the same evening Garnett feels sure that Baron Schenkelderff (who seems to be Mrs Newell’s lover) has provided the money for Hermione’s dowry. But he thinks the marriage should go ahead because Hermione and her intended Count seem to be simple, well-matched, and in love. So he resolves to find her father.

Part V Garnett discovers that his friend in the restaurant is Mr Newell, but when told about his estranged wife’s plans he does not want anything to do with the wedding.

Part VI Garnett reports back to Mrs Newell on his lack of success, and whilst there Hermione asks him not to persuade her father against his will – because of the injustices he has suffered at the hands of his wife (her mother) in the past. But when Garnett reports Hermione’s plea to her father, Mr Newell realises that his daughter’s chance of happiness might be threatened, and he drops his objection.

Part VII On the day of the marriage all goes according to plan. Garnett at first sees the event as an ugly triumph of manipulation by Mrs Newell, and feels ashamed of the part he has played in her machinations. But then he finally has a very positive vision of the event, seeing Hermione reunited with her father.

Principal characters

Paul Garnett	an American journalist, London correspondent of the New York Searchlight
Mrs Sam Newell	an extravagant social climber
Hermione Newell	her retiring young daughter
Baron Schenkelderff	a rich roué and money-lender with a shady past
Mr Samuel Newell	an impoverished American businessman, exiled in Paris
Count Louis du Trayas	a French aristocrat with English relatives (23)

Edith Wharton’s writing

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Other Two

February 16, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Other Two first appeared in Collier’s Weekly in February 1904, and was included in the collection of Edith Wharton’s stories The Descent of Man and Other Stories which was published later the same year. Collier’s Weekly was a very popular illustrated magazine which featured articles on current affairs and high quality fiction on a regular basis. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were making a big impact on the American public in the same magazine at this time.

The Other Two – critical commentary

This is an amusing and lightly satirical story in which nobody is seriously harmed, but it rests on a quite serious social phenomenon which was relatively new at the time – easier access to divorce, and the possible consequences. As Waythorn ruefully observes of his wife’s skill in arranging relations between himself and her two ex-husbands – ‘she had discovered the solution of [sic] the newest social problem’.

Alice Waythorn’s first marriage is to a shabby, insignificant man who Waythorn thinks looks like a ‘piano tuner’ and who he regards to be of no social consequence at all. Alice claims that the marriage ended because he was a ‘brute’. But Haskett turns out to be a mild, decent man who has made great personal sacrifices to stay close to his daughter Lily, the daughter who her mother clearly neglects.

Having divorced Haskett, she marries Gus Varick who is more prosperous, and this gives her the social lift she is seeking: ‘Alice Haskett’s remarriage to Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose recognition she coveted’. But after a few years she ditches him in favour of Waythorn – who she treats in a completely dismissive manner. On the very first night under Waythorn’s roof after their honeymoon, she is late for dinner, and she is clearly manipulating him to her own ends. She is in fact a social climber – a type who Edith Wharton went on to analyse in greater detail in the character of her anti-heroine Undine Spragg in the later novel The Custom of the Country.

The Other Two – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Other Two – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Other Two – paperback edition – Amazon UK

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Other Two – plot synopsis

Part I. Newly married Waythorn is eagerly anticipating a romantic dinner with his new wife Alice when she arrives home with the news that her first husband Mr Haskett wants to assert his visiting right to see Lily, his daughter, who is critically ill.

Part II. Next day Waythorn encounters Alice’s second husband Gus Varick on the train going in to his office and sees him again in a restaurant at lunch time, savouring a liqueur in his coffee. He wonders if Haskett and Varick ever meet by accident in this way. That evening, after Haskett’s visit, Alice pour him a liqueur in his coffee by mistake.

Part III. Gus Varick visits Waythorn to negotiate some business, and behaves in a civilized and gentlemanly manner. Waythorn then encounters Haskett visiting Lily and is surprised that he is a shabby, down-at-heel, and rather inoffensive sort of man. He wonders what Alice’s former life when married to him could have been like.

Part IV. Haskett asks for a change of governess for Lily. Waythorn discovers that Haskett has made big personal sacrifices in order to remain close to his daughter – and that his wife has lied to him about Haskett. Meanwhile, Waythorn continues his amicable business relationship with Gus Varick and they even begin to socialize without difficulty. Waythorn sees his wife as a somewhat promiscuous woman.

Part V. Waythorn gradually accepts that he only has a ‘share’ in his wife’s life. At first he treats the situation satirically, but then realises that he has the advantages of what Alice has learned from her two previous marriages. Finally, on an occasion when Haskett is visiting Lily, Gus Varick arrives at the same time, and the three men sit smoking cigars, until they are joined by Alice, who serves them all tea.

Principal characters

Mr Waythorn	a New York businessman (35+)
Mrs Alice Waythorn	his wife, previously married to Mr Haskett and Mr Gus Varick
Lily Haskett	her sickly daughter, who does not appear
Mr Haskett	Lily’s father, Alice’s first husband
Gus Varick	Alice’s second husband
Mr Sellers	Waythorn’s senior business partner

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

The Touchstone

February 17, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Touchstone was published in 1900, and was Edith Wharton’s first novella. It’s an amazingly accomplished piece, considering that she did not think she had matured as a writer until more than a decade later, when she published Ethan Frome (1911), which she described as marking the end of her ‘apprenticeship’ as a writer.

Margaret Aubyn’s letters

The Touchstone – critical commentary

Context

Edith Wharton was a great friend of Henry James, who had written a number of stories dealing with the relationship of authors to society in general, and the problems of biographical revelations in particular. James’s stories generally put the case for the right of authors to retain an autonomous degree of control over the details of their private lives, and he often depicts those who would reveal intimate aspects of a writer’s biography as sneaks, gossip-mongers, and prying busybodies. The most celebrated case of this kind is his novella The Aspern Papers (1888).

Edith Wharton follows this line of argument in The Touchstone. There is never any doubt in Glennard’s mind that by releasing Margaret Aubyn’s letters to the public, he is betraying both her and the one-sided relationship they had in the past. Moreover, he makes the decision to publish for rather dubious motives – because he needs the money in order to marry Alexa Trent, from whom he conceals the fact that the letters were written to him.

However, this view of publishing biographical materials is countered by Flamel’s view that to do so in the case of Margaret Aubyn would be a public service – because she is an important and renowned figure, and because no personal harm can be done to her since she is now dead. At first this appears to be a slippery, diabolical argument leading Glennard into a Faustian pact with his publisher, from which he profits again and again. Hence the dramatic significance of the royalty cheque he receives and his attempt to salve his conscience by paying Flamel a commission fee.

The reader is given ever reason to think that Flamel has underhand motives and is paving his way to seduce Alexa – but in fact he refuses the fee, and turns out to have acted honourably all along, even to the extent of going to live abroad, with the implication that he has been in love with Alexa but is sacrificing his own interests out of respect for hers.

The novella

The basic requirements of the novella form are that it should be short, concentrated, centred on a single theme, with few characters, and tightly focused in terms of time scale, characters, and location. The Touchstone fulfils all these requirements. It has three principal characters, the drama is centred upon Glennard’s moral struggle in his dealings with the other two – and his past relationship with Margaret Aubyn, who is a very good example of a character exerting influence from beyond the grave. And the letters themselves form an appropriate symbol of the central issue of the story – the revelation of biographical information about a well-known writer.

There is more than a hint that Margaret Aubyn is a thinly veiled portrait of Edith Wharton herself. And it’s also interesting to note that she publishes a volume with the title Pomegranate Seed – which Edith Wharton was to do herself when she wrote a story with that title thirty years later.

The Touchstone – study resources

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Stories 1891-1910 – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Touchstone – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Touchstone – AudioBook format at Gutenberg

The Touchstone – paperback edition – Amazon UK

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Touchstone – plot synopsis

Part I. New York lawyer Stephen Glennard sees a request for information relating to famous novelist Margaret Aubyn. He is in possession of hundreds of her letters written at a time when she was in love with him but when he was unable to reciprocate her feelings. He feels financially pinched and does not have enough money to marry Alexa Trent.

Part II. He has been in love with Alexa for two years, and Margaret Aubyn has been dead for three. Glennard met Margaret Aubyn when he was at university, and after her husband died Glennard moved to work in New York, which is when her correspondence began. She decided to move to London, from where she continued her eloquent and vivid sequence of letters. Glennard realises that he is in possession of a rich seam of materials.

Part III. Alexa reports that her aunt has invited her to live abroad in Europe for two years. This is to relieve the financial burden on her family which Alexa creates as the eldest unmarried daughter. Glennard tries to persuade her to marry him instead, and live frugally.

Part IV. Glennard feels vaguely guilty that he has been standing in the way of Alexa finding a husband who can support her. His friend Flamel confirms that a collection of Margaret Aubyn’s letters would be very valuable to a publisher. Glennard plans to invest any money he might raise from such a sale.

Part V. One year later Glennard is married to Alexa, they are living in the suburbs, and his investments are doing very well. Flamel has helped him to edit the letters, and their publication is a big success. Yet Glennard feels oppressed by a sense of regret that he has somehow betrayed Margaret Aubyn. He is worried that Alexa might discover his secret that the letters were written to him, and he is anxious about his pact with Flamel.

Part VI. Margaret Aubyn’s letters are discussed by a group of people on Flamel’s yacht, following which Alexa asks Glennard to buy her a copy of the Letters. Alexa appears to have closer and closer ties with Flamel.

Part VII. Alexa knows that Glennard was acquainted with Margaret Aubyn in his earlier university days. Glennard invites Flamel to dinner, where this connection is revealed. Glennard is anxious about how much his wife and Flamel know respectively about each other’s knowledge of the situation.

Part VIII. Glennard is so worried about what Alexa might discover that he decides to move back into to New York so that he will have less personal contact with her because of social life in the city. A royalty cheque appears as a result of the publishing success, and he feels more guilty than ever. Friends report on a public reading of the Letters at the Waldorf Hotel. Glennard suspects that Flamel might have revealed his secret to Alexa.

Part IX. Glennard gives Alexa the chance to discover his secret by letting her see a letter from his publisher. Alexa meanwhile continues to have more and more private meetings with Flamel.

Part X. Time goes on, and Glennard still does not discuss his guilty secret with Alexa, as a consequence of which they begin to drift further and further apart. He sees a picture of Margaret Aubyn in a magazine and begins to imaginatively re-live their relationship.

Part XI. Glennard goes to the cemetery and scatters flowers on Margaret Aubyn’s grave.

Part XII. Glennard’s morbid connection with Margaret Aubyn continues and leads him into a solitary way of life. But he is suddenly shocked to encounter Alexa and Flamel together in an out-of-the-way part of Manhattan. He sends Flamel a cheque as commission for his part in placing the letters with a publisher. When Flamel pays him a surprise visit, Glennard reveals that the letters were written to him, and he lies to Flamel, claiming that Alexa was aware of the fact. Flamel rejects his arguments and his action as insulting, and tears up the cheque.

Part XIII. Glennard wonders if Alexa does not realise the letters were written to him, and he begins to value her again. He challenges her in a jealous outburst over her meeting with Flamel, who she tells him is leaving for Europe. She also reveals her distaste for the letters and the ‘inheritance’ they provided for the establishment of their marriage. She argues that the money should be repaid. Glennard asks her if Flamel is leaving because he loves Alexa, and he admits that he has deceived Flamel, who has behaved honourably throughout the episode.

Part XIV. Alexa makes sacrifices and they live frugally. Glennard calculates that it will take two years to repay the money. He is tortured by his inability to make amends to the dead Margaret Aubyn, and he wallows in self-pity. However, Alexa argues that Margaret Aubyn has given him the opportunity to ‘discover himself’, even if it was via a base action on his part.

The Touchstone – principal characters

Stephen Glennard	a New York lawyer
Alexa Trent	his fiancé, and later his wife
Mrs Margaret Aubyn	a celebrated novelist, his former lover
Barton Flamel	a rich aesthete and collector

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The Triumph of Night

February 16, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Triumph of Night was first published in 1914, and was one of a number of ghost stories written by Edith Wharton in the first part of the twentieth century. She believed that a tale of the supernatural should have the ability to ‘send a cold shiver down one’s spine’, but she did not resort to conventional depictions of ghosts and the spirit world. Instead, she believed in evoking states of psychological mystery and terror – rather like her friend and fellow novelist Henry James, who shared her interest in supernatural stories.

a New England winter scene

The Triumph of Night – critical commentary

It is difficult to offer a rational critical analysis of a ghost story unless you are prepared to suspend disbelief in the supernatural, but fortunately Edith Wharton does not make an understanding of The Triumph of Night dependent upon a belief in ghosts.

The story at a surface reading is seemingly mysterious, almost to the point of being inexplicable – but in fact Edith Wharton is employing a literary device she uses in some of her other stories. That is, the apparent omission of important information which only becomes available when the story has been subject to close reading and interpretation.

When stranded on a wintry night, George Foxon is treated to warm hospitality by John Lavington, a man who he has never met before; and yet despite being offered the comfort of a flower-filled bedroom, Foxon feels that there is something discomforting about the house:

Mr Lavington’s intense personality – intensely negative, yet intense all the same – must, in some occult way, have penetrated every corner of his dwelling.

Mr Lavington has a smile – but it is a fixed smile. And it becomes apparent that despite his superficial generosity, he does not have his nephew’s best interests at heart. Frank Rainer, who seems to be suffering from tuberculosis, has been advised for the sake of his health to go to a warmer, drier climate in New Mexico. Indeed, his state of being is so enfeebled that Mr Balch thinks he should go there ‘at once‘. But his uncle has kept him in New Hampshire, and he sends him out into the snow swept night to retrieve Foxon when he leaves the house in fear.

We do not need a supernatural explanation for the story. Young Frank Rainer is virtually murdered by his uncle John Lavington. But what is Lavington’s motive?

The business meeting Lavington has concluded with Grisben and Balch is the witnessing of Frank Rainer’s will, being made on the occasion of his having reached the age of twenty-one. The event is punctuated by rumours of an impending financial crisis – ‘the biggest crash since ’93’. And we learn later that Lavington was caught up in financial corruption on a ‘Gigantic’ scale – and yet he is able to come forward with a plan to bale out the cement company with a donation of ten million dollars of his own money.

The implication is that he has come by this money via Frank’s will, and that he is therefore responsible for Frank’s death. Underneath the fixed smile, that is his truly malevolent intention – and it is that which Foxon ‘sees’ in the double figure who appear behind Lavington’s chair in the business meeting and at dinner. The double is the truly and ‘intensely negative’ side of Lavington who represents that unsavoury and unprincipled side of American capitalism.

Foxon’s dilemma is that he was vaguely aware that something was wrong, but he did nothing to act – in time. He felt that he was ‘the instrument singled out to warn and save’ someone. He is with young Frank in his last moments and releases his fur collar – only to have his hands covered in blood – from Frank’s death by tuberculosis, brought on by the hostile climate of New England in which his uncle has kept him.

The Triumph of Night – study resources

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton Collected Stories – Norton Critical – Amazon US

The Triumph of Night – eBook format at Project Gutenberg

The Triumph of Night – paperback edition – Amazon UK

Edith Wharton – biography

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links

Edith Wharton at Mantex – tutorials, biography, study resources

Edith Wharton’s Short Stories – publication details

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Cambridge Introduction to Edith Wharton – Amazon UK

The Triumph of Night – plot synopsis

Part I. George Foxon has been employed by Mrs Culme as a secretary. He is travelling to join her in New Hampshire when he is stranded at a remote train station on a stormy mid-winter night. Frank Rainer, a friendly but emaciated young man offers him temporary lodgings at the house of John Lavington, his rich uncle, where Foxon is made very welcome.

Part II. The house is warm and comfortable, yet Foxon detects something cold and unfriendly in its ambiance. His bedroom is full of flowers. He joins John Lavington and two business associates who are witnessing the will of Frank Rainer, who has just reached his majority of twenty-one. The group is joined briefly by a mysterious figure who casts hostile glances at Frank.

Part III. The group of men go to dinner, where Frank’s health is discussed. He has been advised to leave for a drier and warmer climate in New Mexico, and is offered a free trip and accommodation there. Foxon sees the mysterious figure in the room again, standing behind John Lavington’s chair, looking malevolently at Frank, though nobody else appears to notice. They drink a toast to Frank, but Foxon is transfixed and terrified by the mystery figure.

Part IV. He bolts to his room, anxious that he alone should be singled out to witness the figure. He rushes out of the house into the snow and dark, wondering if his social isolation has predisposed him to such visions. Frank Rainer catches up with him, and they start back to return to the house, but Foxon feels that he is leading Frank back to his doom. They stop at the lodge, where Frank collapses and dies.

Part V. Foxon subsequently has a breakdown, then goes on a tour of Malaysia to recover. There he reads in old newspapers that John Lavington has been involved in a gigantic financial scandal, from which he has bought himself out with ten million dollars. Foxon regrets that he was given the chance to save someone, but did not act in time, and feels that he has ‘blood on his hands’.

Principal characters

George Foxon	a Boston secretary
Mrs Culme	his new employer, who he never meets
Frank Rainer	a cheerful but sickly young man (21)
John Lavington	his rich uncle
Mr Grisben	business associate of Lavington
Mr Balch	business associate of Lavington

Video documentary

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

Edith Wharton at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides to the major novels, tutorials on the shorter fiction, bibliographies, critiques of the shorter fiction, and web links.

Edith Wharton at Gutenberg
Free eTexts of the major novels and collections of stories in a variety of digital formats – also includes travel writing and interior design.

Edith Wharton at Wikipedia
Full details of novels, stories, and travel writing, adaptations for television and the cinema, plus web links to related sites.

The Edith Wharton Society
Old but comprehensive collection of free eTexts of the major novels, stories, and travel writing, linking archives at University of Virginia and Washington State University.

The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Home
Aggressively commercial site devoted to exploiting The Mount – the house and estate designed by Edith Wharton. Plan your wedding reception here.

Edith Wharton’s manuscripts
Archive of Wharton holdings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Edith Wharton – short stories
More on Edith Wharton
More on short stories

Archives for February 2014

how to study and understand fictional characters

Analysing characters

What is a fictional character?

The composition of a character

How to analyse a character

Character analysis – example

Narrative perspective

Stock characters

Two and three-dimensional characters

Dubious characters

Providing evidence

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Bunner Sisters – critical commentary

Bunner Sisters – study resources

Bunner Sisters – plot summary

Bunner Sisters – principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

making a good impression on paper

What is a personal statement?

Who will read a personal statement?

First impressions

Interviews

Warning

How to write the personal statement

What is the MLA Style Guide?

What does the MLA Style Guide do?

How does the MLA Style Guide work?

References within your text

List of Works Cited

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Film, video, or audio recordings

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tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

Souls Belated – critical commentary

Souls Belated – study resources

Souls Belated – plot summary

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Angel at the Grave – critical commentary

The Angel at the Grave – study resources

The Angel at the Grave – plot summary

The Angel at the Grave – main characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Last Asset – critical commentary

The Last Asset – study resources

The Last Asset – story synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Other Two – critical commentary

The Other Two – study resources

The Other Two – plot synopsis

Principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Touchstone – critical commentary

The Touchstone – study resources

The Touchstone – plot synopsis

The Touchstone – principal characters

Further reading

Other works by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton – web links

tutorial, commentary, study resources, plot, and web links

The Triumph of Night – critical commentary

The Triumph of Night – study resources