A2 Love Through the Ages - wider reading - love and loss
Love, Death and Grief
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Henry has a rare chronological disorder which means that he slips in and out of time. He first meets Clare when he is 28 and she is 20 but she has known him since she was 6. Such confusion characterises their relationship and the gaps, overlaps and distances between them become a universal metaphor for marriage; no matter how intimate their relationship, lovers' experience is always separate. |
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Style/structure: novel, science fiction, love story, dual narrative, non-linear |
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Themes: love, loss, time, fate/free will, |
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A classic of English literature, Emily Bronte's only novel tells the story of the Earnshaw family and its disrupture following the arrival of the child Heathcliffe. The love affair between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliffe and her decision to marry Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliffe has consquences that span generations of the Earnshaw and Linton families. This text lends itself to critical readings and in recent years it has been opened up to feminist, psycoanalytical and Marxist interpretations. |
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Style/structure: frame narrative, mirror structure |
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Themes: love, social class, nature vs culture, boundaries, family |
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The Trick is to Keep Breathing
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Othello by Shakespeare The tale of the eponymous Othello, a black general who marries a white woman, and his subordinate officer Iago, perhaps the most evil villain in English literature. Othello's marriage challenges the prejudices and conventions of Renaissance society, allowing Iago to spin a complicated web of lies and deceptions that corrupts Othello and leads to tragedy. |
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Form/structure: Renaissance drama, tragedy |
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Themes: race, jealousy, obsession, patriarchy, forbidden love, unrequited love, manipulation, public/private |
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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) Speculative fiction in which a group of children raised in a British boarding school are aware that their destiny is to serve as clones, donating their organs until they 'complete' and die. Although the clones accept their fate with humility, when two of them fall in love, they dare to hope for a deferment that will allow them to experience love for a brief time before they fulfil their mission. A philosophical meditation on what it means to be human and to sacrifice one's life for another. |
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Themes: love, sacrifice, coming-of-age, human nature, prejudice. |
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When Jack Durbeyville, a poverty-stricken, drunken peasant, learns that he is related to the noble family of the D'Ubervilles, he plots to send his daughter, Tess, to claim kinship and profit from the family connection. However, Tess soon falls under the power and influence of Alex D'Uberville who pursues her and, when she resists, rapes her. Though Tess escapes from Alex's household, his influence continues to stalk her, destroying her chances of happiness with true love, Angel Clare. The tragedy of Tess' life is that of a powerless woman living in an era when the social conventions are unforgiving and unrelenting. |
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Style/structure: third person narrative |
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Themes: class, fate, patriarchy, hypocrisy of social conventions, nature |
Betrayal
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Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001) McEwan's tale of aspiring writer Briony’s childhood lie and its disastrous results upon the lives of her sister and the man she loves beautifully evokes the interwar period and the shattering effect of the second world war. Briony’s quest for atonement and her subsequent writing career lead to an exploration of the nature of writing itself. |
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Style/structure: post-modernist novel, non-linear narrative |
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Themes: betrayal, atonement, guilt, love, family, writing, social class, effects of war |
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When married drama teacher Sheba embarks upon an affair with 15 year old pupil she confides in Barbara, a middle aged colleague who is driven by jealousy, loneliness and despair to commit a very public act of betrayal. |
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Style/structure: unreliable narrator |
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Themes: transgressive love, jealousy, betrayal, friendship, possessive love, obsession |
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When Jack Durbeyville, a poverty-stricken, drunken peasant, learns that he is related to the noble family of the D'Ubervilles, he plots to send his daughter, Tess, to claim kinship and profit from the family connection. However, Tess soon falls under the power and influence of Alex D'Uberville who pursues her and, when she resists, rapes her. Though Tess escapes from Alex's household, his influence continues to stalk her, destroying her chances of happiness with true love, Angel Clare. The tragedy of Tess' life is that of a powerless woman living in an era when the social conventions are unforgiving and unrelenting. |
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Style/structure: third person narrative |
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Themes: class, fate, patriarchy, hypocrisy of social conventions, nature |
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Partings
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