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The Daughter's Return: African-American and Caribbean Women's Fictions of History

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The Daughter's Return: African-American and Caribbean Women's Fictions of History
Caroline Rody
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195138880

Book Description

Caroline Rody's The Daughter's Return offers a close analysis of an emerging genre in African-American and Caribbean fiction: the novels of black women writers who have returned to their ancestral pasts. In novels like Toni Morrison's Beloved, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, and Maryse Conde's I, Tituba, "magical" black daughters return to sites of trauma through visions, dreams, and memories. Rody treats these texts as allegorical expressions of the desire of writers newly emerging into cultural authority to reclaim their difficult inheritance, and finds a counter plot of heroines' encounters with women of other racial and ethnic groups running through these works.

Mother Imagery: In the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women

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Mother Imagery: In the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women
Simone A. James Alexander
Manufacturer: University of Missouri Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 082621309X

Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature

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Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature

Manufacturer: University Press of Florida
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0813017289

Nine Black Women: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Writers from the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean

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Nine Black Women: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century Writers from the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean
Moira Ferguson
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415919053

Book Description

This is the first anthology to bring together the writings of the earliest black women writers in the East and West Caribbean, Bermuda, Canada, the US and England. The selections span the American Revolution to the decade following the Civil War.

The nine writers included, both slave and free, represent a variety of genres, regions, professions, and political perspectives. Their words suggest the rich cultural history embedded in the writings, and provide a glimpse into the lives of women coping with extreme racism and sexism. As black women, survival guides the construction of their texts and their public images. Each employs diverse strategies of resistance, evasion, displacement, omission and accommodation.

With an introduction that contains copious biographical details about each writer and a brief chronology preceding each text, Nine Black Women is a unique collection of original works.

The Great Gatsby (Oxford World's Classics)

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Re-read this book (when you've grown up)
Oh I'm so rich. Oh my friends are so rich.
Pretty Good look at Rich Excesses
The GREAT Gatsby
I would read this again

The Great Gatsby (Oxford World's Classics)
F. Scott Fitzgerald , and Ruth Prigozy
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Classics)
The Catcher in the Rye
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics)
Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
Their Eyes Were Watching God

ASIN: 0192832697

Amazon.com

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

Book Description

"He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was . . ." The Great Gatsby (1925), F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, stands among the greatest of all American fiction. Jay Gatsby's lavish lifestyle in a mansion on Long Island's gold coast encapsulates the spirit, excitement, and violence of the era Fitzgerald named `the Jazz Age'. Impelled by his love for Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby seeks nothing less than to recapture the moment five years earlier when his best and brightest dreams - his `unutterable visions' - seemed to be incarnated in her kiss. A moving portrayal of the power of romantic imagination, as well as the pathos and courage entailed in the pusuit of an unattainable dream, The Great Gatsby is a classic fiction of hope and disillusion. This edition is fully annotated with a fine Introduction incorporating new interpretation and detailing Fitzgerald's struggle to write the novel, its critical reception and its significance for future generations.

Customer Reviews:

Re-read this book (when you've grown up).......2007-06-20

I had forgotten how delightful and evocative this book is--or perhaps it just all went over my head back in high school.

It has made me think of three things: devices that compel the reader forward, the way a story folds, unfolds, and reveals, and death in the novel.

The thing that propels the book forward--the mysterious Gatsby--is introduced at the very beginning. Although this initial mystery does not take us to the end of the novel, nor is it even a particularly revelatory device, the mystery does get things going, giving Fitzgerald the space to lay out his characters, their place and time, and the voice of his narrator.

Once we get to the bottom of the Gatsby mystery, once we learn Gatsby's history and motivation, the story continues to unfold. And the real telling of the story, the real events, surround the characters and their clashes with one another, with their desire and the things that either get in the way of their desire, or the things that the satiated desire reveals. And it is in this wanting and getting that the real story takes shape.

And then I wonder about death in the novel. I suppose I wonder this because I just finished Moody's "Ice Storm" and I feel as though the death in that book was somehow unnecessary--not that I can imagine the novel completing itself without the death. In fact, I don't know what else would complete the book. But in the particular instance of Moody's novel, the death seems too convenient. Even in Gatsby, death comes not in the messy, senseless way of real life, but in the meaningful (if only for the protagonist) way of fiction. But of course, that it exactly what it is.

Oh I'm so rich. Oh my friends are so rich........2007-06-15

Man, what self-indulgent rubbish.

"I am so rich...I am so observant...My friends are so rich...My friends have great parties...Gatsby is so rich...Gatsby is so neat..."

So it's a great story about the Jazz era. It wasn't that great an era.

If I wanted to read about lame, rich, full of themself people going to parties, I'd pick up People magazine.

A bore.

Pretty Good look at Rich Excesses.......2007-06-13

This famous novel mixes a serious critique of the excesses of the 1920's Jazz age with a tragic tale of hypocrisy, jealousy, ambition and greed. Narrator Nick Carraway views his ritzy neighbor Jake Gatsby with a mix of disdain and admiration. Gatsby enjoys the good life of high society parties and fast living, plus pursuing a non-admirable woman (Daisy) who happens to be married. Not surprisingly, events come to a head later in the book. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) had a strong feel for the excesses and hypocrisy of high society, and one suspects the story's modest anti-Semitism and racism reflect something Fitzgerald both disdained and indulged in. Readers are advised that this book is better understood with a basic knowledge of the 1920's with its booming postwar economy, riches, prohibition, and new inventions.

Some say the author was his own Gatsby, a talented young writer with a society wife (Zelda) whose fast living and alcoholism led to an early demise.

The GREAT Gatsby.......2007-06-12

The Great Gastby is honestly one of the greatest books out there these days. Despite the infamous spellin errors, Fitzgerald really pulls off a complicated relationship that truly reveals the true ideals and values of the new American Dream.
Dedicated to his wife Zelda, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a quick compilation of his passion for her, pouring out every single rush of emotion from pen to paper. After Fitzgerald's rocky relationship with Zelda, he decided to embed his experience into a book replete with mistakes as a result of his burst of emotion and fervor.
The Great Gatsby argues that even if an individual is determined enough to chase a dream to the ends of the earth by any means necessary, his social status would remain the unchanged. Left with no choice, Gatsby is forced to perform illegal actions, like bootlegging, in order to gain monetary success. With this wealth, Gatsby can successfully compete with Tom and win Daisy over. However, Daisy cares not only about the wealth of her husband, but also the reputation and social status. However, the only way Gatsby was able to obtain that much wealth in a short period of time was to bootleg, an illegal action that would lower anyone's social standing. In the hierarchy of society, an individual is rarely able to move up on the social ladder. Because Gatsby had to earn his wealth through illegal means, his reputation was thus undermined. Because his goal was to win Daisy's heart, he cared less about his appearance to his contemporaries and thus sacrificed his image for his goal. Despite his determination, he was unsuccessful in that he died before he could fully experience Daisy's love, ultimately coming up short.
Even though he had gained the wealth he needed, his goals were eventually hindered and obstructed, as he died without his dear love. Because the story ends as a tragedy, Gatsby represents a low social standing individual who failed to reach his goal, despite his quick path to financial success. Though he came close, he still could not hold back the repercussions of a society, in which reputation mattered as much as wealth.
I recommend this book, because it's ideas are intriguing and realistic and can potentionally happen to you.

I would read this again.......2007-06-12

I was essentially forced to read the book, and I am glad I was. While I was reading this book, I thought I was watching a soap opera. It has everything you could want in a interesting, action packed story, everything from love triangles and murder to back stabbing and philosophical enlightenments.

The book gave me a pretty clear and convincing perspective about the early to middle 20th century obsession with the American dream, otherwise known as the great, ideal, promising American dream. The tragic story of Jay Gatsby exemplifies the flawed aspects of the American dream, warning readers even from modern day of the danger and sacrifice demanded from the pursuit of the American Dream. And because we are a growing society still pursuing financial success in most matters, the book applied and will apply in the near future.

The Island of the Women: And Other Stories

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The Island of the Women: And Other Stories
George MacKay Brown
Manufacturer: Trafalgar Square Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0719558697

CONRAD'S LINGARD TRILOGY (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)

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CONRAD'S LINGARD TRILOGY (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities)
Krenn
Manufacturer: Garland Science
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0824057988

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