Saturday, June 8, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Pickwick Papers
 |
| The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Tracy Tupman, Nathaniel Winkle, Samuel Pickwick and Augustus Snodgrass. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Title: The
Pickwick Papers
Author: Charles
Dickens
Main
characters: Mr. Samuel
Pickwick, Alfred Jingle, Mr. Wardle, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, Mr. Tony Weller, Samuel
Weller, Mr. Tracy Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, Arabella Allen, Emily Wardle, Isabella
Wardle, Rachael Wardle.
Description
of one of the main characters:
Mr. Samuel Pickwick
is a retired businessman. He is the founder of the Pickwick Club. He travels
around with his friends Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle to the interiors of England. He gets to meet
different kinds of people and also understands their behavior. He makes new friends
while travelling around. Then, when his friends slowly get married and get
other jobs, he dissolves the club and start living peacefully.
Whom I like
and why: I like
Mr. Wardle very much. He is hearty. He is the hospitable owner of Manor Farm in
Dingley Dell. His elderly mother lives with him. He has two daughters – Emily
Wardle and Isabella Wardle. He also has a spinster sister named Rachael Wardle.
He is a very fun-loving person and is always ready to help.
Whom I
dislike and why: I dislike Alfred Jingle. He is an itinerant
actor. He refuses to tell his name in the beginning to Mr.Pickwick,
Mr. Snodgrerss, Mr.Tupman and Mr.Winkle. He speaks in broken sentences with
abrupt pauses. He is a very strange man.
Setting/theme
of the story: Mr. Samuel
Pickwick, the founder of the Pickwick club travels around with the "Pickwikians" – Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Winkle and Mr. Tupman to explore the rural areas of England.
They first meet Alfred Jingle who is an itinerant actor. They have a few adventures with him. Then they meet Mr. Wardle, his elderly mother Mrs. Wardle, his two daughters Emily Wardle and Isabella Wardle and Rachael Wardle. They dine and stay with them for a few days. They have do partying and the Pickwikians thoroughly enjoy themselves. They meet Allen,
Benjamin Allen and his sister Arabella Allen. Miss Allen is Arabella Allen’s
aunt. Nathaniel Winkle marries Arabella Allen. Mr. Pickwick finds a servant for
himself named Sam Weller. Sam Weller is very loyal to Mr. Pickwick. So,
Mr. Pickwick frees him and gives him a houe in the back garden of his house.
Then he decides to dissolve the Pickwick Club because of two reasons – one
because the Pickwick Club has suffered much from internal dissensions during
Mr. Pickwick's long absence; second, because all his friends had settled down
and got other jobs. After dissolving The Pickwick Club, Mr. Pickwick says:
“I shall never regret having devoted the greatest part of 2 years to mixing with different varieties and shades of human pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many.”
Part I
enjoyed the most: I enjoyed
the part when Mr.Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, Mr.Winkle, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr.Wardle,
Mrs. Wardle, Rachael Wardle, Emily Wardle and Isabella Wardle come in fancy
dresses and costumes to the dinner, dressing up as someone else. Mr. Pickwick
alone doesn’t dress as someone else as the others say he is a man of character himself and does not have a need to dress up as someone else.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
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| The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde poster. Converted losslessly from .tif to .png by uploader. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Title: The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll
And Mr. Hyde
Author :
Robert Louis Stevenson
Main
Characters : Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, Dr. Lanyon, Mr. Enfield and Poole.
Description of one of the main characters: Mr. Utterson
is a lawyer. He has Dr. Jekyll’s will. He disapproves it. He doesn’t have many
friends. His friends are Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Enfield.
Whom I like
and why: I like
Dr. Lanyon very much. He is Dr. Jekyll’s best friend. Even when he comes to know about the
connection of Mr. Hyde with Henry Jekyll, that they were both the same person,
he did not tell everyone.
Whom I
dislike and why: I dislike
Mr. Hyde. He is the negative side of Dr. Henry Jekyll. He is pure evil. He
commits murders. He takes control over his other side, Dr. Jekyll, and totally
destroys the respectable Henry Jekyll and becomes the purely evil Edward Hyde. He
kills the distinguished MP, Sir Danvers.
Setting/theme
of the story: Mr. Utterson,
a lawyer, hears about Edward Hyde while speaking to his friend Mr. Enfield. He
remembers seeing the name in Henry Jekyll’s will. So, he goes to Jekyll’s house
and enquires to Poole, the servant, if he could meet Jekyll. Poole tells
Mr. Utterson that Dr. Jekyll has gone out. Accidently Utterson meets a dwarfish
man enter Jekyll’s house through the back door. He guesses it might be Edward
Hyde. The day after, there is news that Sir. Daverns Canew had been
murdered by Edward Hyde, but Hyde is no where to be seen. Utterson meets
Dr. Jekyll and talks to him about Hyde but Henry Jekyll refuses to speak about him. Everything gets back to normal until Poole comes running to Utterson, terrified, one
day. He tells Utterson about how Dr. Jekyll suddenly doesn’t come out of his cabinet at all and how whenever he talks it isn’t his old master’s voice.
Utterson goes to Jekyll’s house and finds out that it is Edward Hyde and not
Henry Jekyll inside the cabinet. They break into the cabinet but they find that Edward Hyde
had committed suicide. There is a letter from Henry Jekyll and his new will, addressed to
Utterson. There is also a change in the will. Before, Jekyll had stated that Edward Hyde
would inherit if he, Henry Jekyll, was “absent for 3 months”. He had changed the will and
written that Utterson would inherit everything. In the letter to Utterson, Jekyll had described all about himself and his other part- Edward Hyde. That’s when Utterson understands
the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
Part I
enjoyed the most: I enjoyed
the part when Mr. Utterson reads Dr. Jekyll’s letter and understands his friend's
strange case. I also like the part when Utterson’s friend, Mr. Enfield
describes Mr. Hyde to Mr. Utterson as an unpleasant dwarfish person.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The Dairy of A Nobody
 |
| George Grossmith (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Author:
George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
Illustrations
by: Weedon Grossmith.
Main
characters: Charles Pooter, Caroline Pooter (Carrie), Lupin Pooter, Gowing,
Cumming, Mr. Stillbrook, Sarah, Daisy Mutlar, Lilian Posh, Murray Posh, Mr. Perkupp
and Mr.Hardfur Hutlee and Frank Mutlar.
Description
of one of the main characters: Charles
Pooter is the one who writes this dairy. His wife is Caroline, called as
Carrie, and his son is Lupin Pooter. Charles Pooter works for Mr. Perkupp. He likes his
diary very much. He has two best friends called Cumming and Gowing. Charles Pooter tries to
make jokes. He does stupid things.
Whom I like
and why: I like
Caroline Pooter. She is the only sensible person of all the characters. She is trendy and she believes in spiritual séances. Her friend, Mrs. James, also
does. Caroline Pooter is very kind.
Whom I dislike and why: I do not dislike any character in the story. All of them are funny in one way or the
other. I do not fancy some but I do not dislike them.
Setting/theme
of the story: Mr.Charles
Pooter shifts to a new house in Brickfield terrace called ‘The Laurels’. He
writes in his diary about each day he lives there. He writes about the trouble
the tradesman and scraper gives him;
about how he spends some nice evenings with his two old friends Cumming
and Gowing. He also writes about his son and how his son suddenly joins
‘Holloway Comedians’. He writes how his wife Caroline gets influenced by
Mrs. James’s trendy ways.
He tries to make stupid jokes with his friends like:
He tries to make stupid jokes with his friends like:
“Doesn’t it seem odd that Gowing’s always Coming and Cumming always Going?”
In the last
Lupin marries Lilian Posh. Charles gets promoted and gets more salary. He buys
“The Laurels” for himself.
Part I
enjoyed the most: I enjoyed
the part when Lupin and Frank Mutlar act as the Blondin Donkey and make everyone
laugh during the party at the Laurels.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Way to Happiness
“I am caught
in the prison of sorrows and I am suffering,” he said.
“What is the
reason?” asked an old man.
“Others are
giving me trouble.”
“It is your
mind that gives you trouble.”
“Is that
what you say?”
“Yes.”
“If that is
so, what is the way out of sorrow?”
“Understand
your mind…It’s enough.”
“How to
understand?” he asked.
“Listen to
this story”, the man said.
Thus, he
narrated:
“A man had a
pet cat and he loved it. One day, that cat caught a rat and brought it. That
made him happy. The next day, the cat caught his pet parrot and brought it. He
was shocked by that. Yet another day, the cat roamed somewhere and caught and
brought a sparrow. He was neither happy nor shocked by that. It took him
sometime to understand that it is the nature of a cat to catch something.
It is
happiness when a rat, which is not liked, is caught.
It is sadness when a
parrot, which is liked, is caught.
It is neither happiness nor sadness when a
sparrow, not related to him, is caught.
The old man
ended the story.
He started thinking. He heard the gate of the prison being
opened.
“People who
understand live happily.
Translated by me from "Ullame Ulagam" by Thenkachi Ko Swaminathan (publishers Vanathi Pathipagam).
Translated by me from "Ullame Ulagam" by Thenkachi Ko Swaminathan (publishers Vanathi Pathipagam).
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