Shreya's Treasures

JANE EYRE CHARLOTTE BRONTË GENRE : BILDUNGSROMAN, GOTHIC FICTION, ROMANCE NOVEL FIRST PUBLISHED : 1847 “I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it’s expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it’s perils.”   -- Jane Eyre. Brontë's iconic novel of 1847, Jane Eyre, is subtitled ‘An Autobiography’. It is an example of a Bildungsroman: a work that traces the education and development of its heroine, and follows her journey through life. The text combines realism with fairy tale and Gothic motifs.  During the Victorian era the ideal woman's life revolved around the domestic sphere of her family and the home. Middle class women were brought up to “be pure and innocent, tender and sexually undemanding, submissive and obedient”. A woman had no rights of her own and; she was expected to marry and become the servant of her husband. Few professio...

THE SWIMMER JOHN CHEEVER GENRE : ALLEGORICAL FICTION  FIRST PUBLISHED : 1964 “A masterpiece of mystery, language and sorrow. It starts out, on a perfect summer morning, as the record of a splendid exploit... and ends up as a kind of ghost story.” — Michael Chabon on The Swimmer Cheever, "the Chekhov of the suburbs", wrote this story when alcohol had started to take over him in his early fifties. A masterful blend of fantasy and reality, it chronicles a middle-aged man’s gradual acceptance of the truth that he has avoided facing—that his life is in ruins. The story immediately became an object of fascination in literary circles for its surprising blend of realism and surrealism and the emotional punch it delivers. Neddy Merrill "Ned", a man with the “vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure”, one day inexplicably decides to “swim home” via a trail of his neighbours’ pools. The people he interacts with on this bizarre odyssey include form...

A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS GENRE : MAGICAL REALISM, FICTION GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ  FIRST PUBLISHED : 1955 “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” was first published in the pages of the New American Review (1955), much before the majority of his work and twelve years before One Hundred Years of Solitude, probably the most familiar of his stories. What we have here is a children’s story about a place warped by sadness and visited by a distressed, lost Daedalus. Yet its vibrant colour is all its own. It is a story deeply overlapping the febrile plenitude of fiction’s strangeness and the complex relationship we, as humans, have with each other. Like so much of Márquez’s writing the story aches with a luxurious language of sadness and beauty.  "He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his enormous wings” We are introduced to a world ...

BLACK SWAN DIRECTED : DARREN ARONOFSKY RELEASED : 2010 Black Swan is a cracking psychological melodrama and an artistic masterpiece. At its centre is young ballerina Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman. She is beautiful, vulnerable, sexually naive and susceptible to mental illness. To play the role of a lifetime, Nina must delve deep into her own dark side. As her hallucinations and anxiety attacks escalate with her progress in rehearsal, artistic break-through fuses with nervous breakdown. This is a movie about fear of ones body, fear of being supplanted in the affections of a powerful man, love of perfection, love of dance, and perhaps most importantly of all, passionate hatred for ones mother. Nina, constantly striving for perfection, lives with her controlling mother who gave up dance to have her daughter. They live in a tiny New York City apartment. When the ballet's director decides to replace the aging prime ballerina for the new season production of "Swan ...

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN FIRST PUBLISHED : 1892 “ The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story about a woman, written in a diary form, who has a mental illness but cannot heal due to her husband’s lack of belief. We here get inside the mind of a troubled lady who soon enters a state of madness. "I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write_ a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.But I find I get pretty tired when I try.It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work."  The use of imagery and setting helps illustrate this theme throughout the story. The setting of the vast colonial mansion and particularly the nursery room with barred windows provides an image of loneliness and seclusion experienced by the protagonist. The way the wallpaper of the room is described throughout the story fills the reader with a sense of eeriness. "The color is repellent, almost revolting ; a smoldering...

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME RELEASED : 2017 DIRECTOR :  LUCA GUADAGNINO                                           "Is it better to speak or die?" “Call Me by Your Name,” begins in the summer of 1983, in a place so enchanted, that it belongs in a fairy tale. The location, the opening credits tell us, is “Somewhere in Northern Italy.” Such vagueness is deliberate: the point of a paradise is that it could exist anywhere but that, once you reach the place, you never forget it. Thus it is that a young American named Oliver (Armie Hammer) arrives, dopey with jet lag, at the house of his Professor Mr Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife (Amira Casar). “We’ll have to put up with him for six long weeks,” Annella says, with a sigh. Well, not long enough, as it turns out. One can pack a whole lifetime into these six weeks. The first words of the film are “The Usurper” , uttered by...

THE METAMORPHOSIS FRANZ KAFKA FIRST PUBLISHED:1915 “Father. You must just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that we’ve believed it for so long is the root of all our trouble.”  ‘Metamorphosis’ is one of Franz Kafka’s known works. Written from the vantage point of Gregor Samsa, Kafka provides readers with an individual’s sudden transformation into a vermin and the corresponding impact it has on his family, identity and state of consciousness. His family is forced to adjust lives to accommodate to living with a human-sized insect in the house. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka explores the four stages of isolation through symbolism, plot, and contrasting characterizations of Gregor and his family. One of the many symbols is a picture that hangs on Gregor’s wall. Kafka describes Gregor’s surroundings in great detail, making sure to include a lengthy depiction of a cut out picture of a lady “sitting upright, dressed in a fur hat and fur boa” . The lady sits, ...

THE PIANIST DIRECTOR : ROMAN POLANSKI RELEASED : 2002 “The life of a human being, let alone his personal freedom, is a matter of no importance. But the love of freedom is native to every human being and every nation, and cannot be suppressed in the long term. History teaches us that tyranny has never endured. And now we have blood-guilt on our conscience for the dreadful injustice of murdering the Jewish inhabitants.” Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" tells the story of a Polish Jew, a classical musician, who survived the Holocaust through stoicism and good luck. This is not a thriller, and avoids any temptation to crank up suspense or sentiment; it is the pianist's witness to what he saw and what happened to him. That he survived was not a victory when all whom he loved died. It is a cold, harsh approach to a cold, harsh subject and the film treats its history with the utmost respect, detailing the experiences of one man and one journey whilst implying that...

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE JD SALINGER FIRST PUBLISHED : 1951 J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has become, since its publication, an enduring classic of American literature. The novel is a favorite because of its humor, its mordant criticism of American middle-class society and its values, and the skill with which Salinger captures colloquial speech and vocabulary.   The basic story of The Catcher in the Rye follows the adventures of sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield, an independent, self-indulgent, idealistic, and sentimental figure of adolescent rebellion, during a forty-eight-hour period after he has been expelled from Pencey Prep, the latest of three expulsions for Holden. His brother, Allie, died only a few short years before. H is growing anxiety about what people will think and make of him when they found out that he failed his academics again, forces him to impromptu decide what action to make.  After confrontations with some fellow students at Pencey...

                                          SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION                       DIRECTOR: FRANK DARABONT                       RELEASED: 1994  “Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” The Shawshank Redemption is a movie about time, patience and loyalty – these qualities grow on you during the progress of this story, which is about how two men serving life sentences in prison become friends and find a way to fight off despair. More so than just the brilliant acting by Mr. Freeman and Mr. Robbins, the cinematography is quite flawless and the film has a consistent flow to it. The Shawshank Redemption is a very humane story with a lot of powerful, and emotional scenes that have captivated millions of viewers...