NOVEL CARDS
Novel Card for Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
1932
Setting: Central London A.F. 632 (2546)
Main Characters: John, Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson,
Lenina Crowne, Mustapha Mond
Minor Characters: Fanny Crowne, Henry Foster, Linda, The
Director
Themes: The use of technology to control society;
The consumer society; The incompatibility of
happiness/truth
Symbols: soma
Quotes: “Everyone belongs to every one else.”
“Orgy-porgy, Ford and Fun, kiss the girls and make them
ONE.”
“…there’s always soma to give you a holiday from the
facts.”
Summary for Brave New World
• In a future where the world is corrupted
by technology and censorship, Bernard
Marx, an upper-class member of society,
feels out of place. As part of a social
experiment, a savage named John from
the savage reservation is introduced to
this brave new world. The more John is
exposed to the culture, the more he wants
to go back home; ultimately, leading to
Bernard and a Helmholtz’s banishment,
and to his own demise.
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Novel Card for Macbeth
Title: Macbeth
Author: William Shakespeare
Date of Publication: 1603-1606
Setting: 11th Century, Scotland
Point of View: third person limited
Main Characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, King Duncan, Macduff
Themes:
-The Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition
-The Relationship between Cruelty and Masculinity
--questioning manhood
--women are represented as evil (critics call it one of
Shakespeare’s most misogynistic plays)
-The Difference between Kingship and Tyranny
Symbols and motifs: hallucinations, blood, unnatural events, light v. dark
Style Notes: Blank Verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
• One Quote: “She should have died hereafter…
Lifes’ but a walking shadow,
a poor player that struts and frets upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Animal Farm
George Orwell
Satire/allegory
1945 – fable to tell history of Soviet Communism
Setting: Manor Farm, England
Point of View: 3rd person
Main Characters: Napoleon (Stalin); Snowball
(Trotsky); Boxer, Squealer, Old Major, Clover, Moses,
Mollie, Benjamin (the older generation)
Themes: Corruption of Socialist Ideals in Soviet Union;
The Danger of a Naïve Working Class; The Abuse of
Language to Abuse Power
SUMMARY GOES HERE
Quotes: “All Animals are equal, but some are more
equal than others;” “Four legs good, two legs bad”
Symbols: The Barn (Seven Commandments)
The Windmill (pigs’ manipulation)
Summary for Animal Farm
• When a farmer fails to take care of his farm and
its inhabitants, a revolution is born. The animals
rebel against the humans, naming mankind as
their own. Napoleon, a manipulative pig, takes
the reigns of this new society, led by greed and
selfishness, but soon what the animals had
feared the most had become a reality. They had
become what they had sought freedom from in
the first place, man.
The Catcher in the Rye
Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: JD Salinger
Date of Publication: 1945: Coming of Age Novel
Setting: 1950 in NYC
POV: first person
Main characters: Holden– depressed 16 year old
drop-out; Allie: Holden’s deceased brother; Phoebe:
Holden’s younger sister; Jane: Holden’s childhood
girlfriend
Themes: alienation as a form of self protection;
painfulness growing up
Symbols: red hunting hat; the museum; the ducks in
CP
Literary device: archetypal hero
Summary and Quotes
• Holden Caulfield is a depressed boy who drops
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out of school. He feels angst and depression
about everything that is currently happening and
is only happy when he reminisces about his
childhood. In searching for himself, Holden
finally realizes that, by the end, he is unhappy
and needs help.
“This is a people shooting hat…I shoot people in
this hat.”
“I have a feeling that you’re riding for some kind
of terrible, terrible fall.”
“I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff…”
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles
Play
429 BC
POV: third person objective
Setting: Oedipus’ palace in Thebes
Main Characters: Oedipus, Iocaste, Creon, Teiresias
Minor Characters: Laios and the Shepherd
Theme: A man cannot run from his fate/blindness and sight
Symbols: -- The scar on Oedipus foot
-- Teiresias – he symbolizes Oedipus’ blindness to the
truth in the beginning of the play and shows Oedipus’ temper
WRITE SUMMARY HERE
Quotes: “Teiresias:…A Blind man,/Who has his sight now.”
-- Oedipus (swollen foot) – “I have had the mark as
long as I can remember.”
Literary devices: dramatic irony