Final Exam

The Secret Garden

Plot summary

At the turn of the20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her. She is cared for by servants, who allow her to become a spoiled, aggressive and selfish child.

After acholeraepidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family before she is sent toYorkshire, England to live with Archibald Craven, an uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated house, Misselthwaite Manor.

The Secret Garden

Plot summary

At the turn of the20th century, Mary Lennox is a sickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in India to wealthy British parents who never wanted her. She is cared for by servants, who allow her to become a spoiled, aggressive and selfish child.

After acholeraepidemic kills her parents and the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family before she is sent toYorkshire, England to live with Archibald Craven, an uncle whom she has never met, at his isolated house, Misselthwaite Manor.

Literary realism

Background

Broadly defined as "the representation of reality",realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, withoutartificialityand avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.

Realism has been prevalent in the arts at many periods, and is in large part a matter of technique and training, and the avoidance of stylization. In the visual arts, illusionistic realism is the accurate depiction of lifeforms, perspective, and the details of light and colour. Realist works of art may emphasize the ugly or sordid, such as works ofsocial realism,regionalism, orKitchen sink realism.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Ozis an Americanchildren's novelwritten by authorL. Frank Baumand illustrated byW. W. Denslow, originally published by theGeorge M. Hill Companyin Chicago on May 17, 1900. It has since been reprinted on numerous occasions, most often under the titleThe Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular1902 Broadway musicalas well as the iconic1939 musical film adaptation.

The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl namedDorothyin the magicalLand of Oz, after she and her pet dogTotoare swept away from theirKansashome by acyclone.The novel is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. TheLibrary of Congresshas declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale". Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additionalOz booksthat serve as official sequels to the first story.

Baum dedicated the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife",Maud Gage Baum. In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out.The Wonderful Wizard of Ozsold three million copies by the time it entered thepublic domainin 1956.

Publication

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen often referred to in Scandinavia as H. C. Andersen; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories, called eventyr in Danish, express themes that transcend age and nationality.

Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages,have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina" and many more.

His stories have inspired ballets, animated and live-action films and plays.

Early life

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen often referred to in Scandinavia as H. C. Andersen; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories, called eventyr in Danish, express themes that transcend age and nationality.

Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages,have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.Some of his most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", "The Nightingale", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina" and many more.

His stories have inspired ballets, animated and live-action films and plays.

Early life

Brothers Grimm

TheBrothers Grimm(die Brüder Grimmordie Gebrüder Grimm),Jacob(1785–1863) andWilhelm Grimm(1786–1859), were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together specialized in collecting and publishingfolkloreduring the 19th century. They were among the best-known storytellers of folk tales, and popularized stories such as "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig"), "The Goose-Girl" ("Die Gänsemagd"), "Hansel and Gretel" ("Hänsel und Gretel"), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" ("Rumpelstilzchen"),"Sleeping Beauty" ("Dornröschen"), and "Snow White" ("Schneewittchen"). Their first collection of folk tales,Children's and Household Tales(Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.

The brothers spent their formative years in the German town ofHanau. Their father's death in 1796 caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years after. They both attended theUniversity of Marburgwhere they developed a curiosity about German folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folk tales. The rise ofromanticismduring the 19th century revived interest in traditional folk stories, which to the brothers represented a pure form of national literature and culture. With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folk tales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis forfolklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857, their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200. In addition to writing and modifying folk tales, the brothers wrote collections of well-respected German and Scandinavian mythologies, and in 1838 they began writing a definitive German dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), which they were unable to finish during their lifetimes.

The popularity of the Grimms' best folk tales has endured well. The tales are available in more than 100 languages and have been later adapted by filmmakers includingLotte ReinigerandWalt Disney, with films such asSnow White and the Seven DwarfsandSleeping Beauty. During the 1930s and 40s, the tales were used as propaganda by theThird Reich; later in the 20th century psychologists such asBruno Bettelheimreaffirmed the value of the work, in spite of the cruelty and violence in original versions of some of the tales, which the Grimms eventually sanitized.

fairy tales

fairy tales are stories that range from those originating in folk lore to more modern stories defined as literary fairy tales. A modern definition of the fairy tale , as provided by Jens Tismar's monologue in German, is a story that differs "from an oral folk tale",written by "a single identifiable author", can be characterised as "simple and anonymous",and exists  in a mutable and difficult to define genre with a close ralationship to folktales.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears

About This Book

In this West African folk tale, retold by Verna Aardema,

a mosquito brags to an iguana that he spied a farmer digging

yams as big as mosquitoes. The iguana scoffs at such a notion

Midterm