Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Toni Morrison's Jazz

Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, are masterpieces of literature that use different components to criticize society and explore the nature of humankind. Some of the main characters in the novels – Sethe and Beloved, and Victor Frankenstein and the Monster – have intricate relationships based on love, hatred, remorse, and mainly vengeance. The gothic thematic of each novel is demonstrated through elements that explore the setting of most scenes, as well as the nature of human behavior. The characters who were unnaturally brought to life, Beloved and the Monster, serve as catalysts for the development of the narrative, and have profound effects in all remaining characters.

Paul Goldberger, an American architectural critic once quoted, “Urbanism works when it creates the journey as desirable as the destination.”

Coming of age is defined as the transition from one’s youth to his or her adulthood. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding all explore this concept. Romeo and Juliet is a story about two star-crossed lovers in the depths of forbidden love despite an ancient family feud. House on Mango Street is a series of vignettes about a young Latina girl’s life growing up in Chicago. Lastly, Lord of the Flies is about a group of abandoned children who work to survive on a deserted island. Each of these stories provides details as to what characteristics define a mature individual, and they also show the various processes to achieve this maturity.

He also quotes from Ondaatje p.37 to develop his idea about maps “whose portraits have nothing to do with surface.” This coupled with his narrative about the explorers in the Age of Colonialism

In both Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, nature is paradoxically symbolized as both a liberator and a destroyer- intellectual maturation and hubris- through the “awakenings” of Edna Pontellier and Chris McCandless.

When people move from one, place to another, over time that person changes. The way people act; the way the city is run changes the person, whether it would be how they talk how people act to other people. In Toni Morrison’s Jazz, the author shows the reader just how important geography is to a person’s thought process and actions. A character in Jazz named Violet Trace shows the reader just how important a change in geography can be for a person. Throughout the novel, Morrison shows the effect of migrating from the south to the north and how the city changes the way certain people think and what it could lead them to do. The concept of geography and what it does psychologically shows the reader how or why a certain person did something. The settings used by Morrison show the reader what the effect is when moving from place to another and more specifically how Violet moving from the south to the north affected her psychologically.

The human mind is a fragile thing. It can be both strengthen and broken down easily. Actions and even words can be the thing to kill a person mentally. Physically harming or locking away a person can lead to mental and bodily withdrawal. Harming a person with words can leave lasting effects and always stay within a person's psyche. Oppressing and locking away a person's true nature or desires can cause someone to act in way that he or she has never behaved before. When done by a loved one, it can affect a person even more. In William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Susan Glaspell's “Trifles”, two different women are kept mentally and physically locked away by a person who is supposed to love and protect them. Though Emily and Mrs. Wright

to use jazz rhythms and dialect to depict the life of urban blacks in his work (The

Toni Morrison brings another surprise to the story of Beloved. The addition of character Beloved conceals whole meaning Morrison tries to conduct to the readers. So far, character Beloved is portrayed as an innocent, pure, yet egotistic girl. Beloved also presumably the incarnation of Sethe’s dead baby, whose tomb is engraved Beloved. Morrison offers supernatural element in the story to create mysterious and spooky atmosphere, which raise curiosity and excite readers even more.

A comparative literary study of the effect of mental illness on the central characters is the semi-autobiographical novels The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Comparing two women trying to deal with mental illness and are trying to cope with the mental pressures they put on themselves and by other people. Although the differences between these two novels are The Bell Jar shows Esther’s life before she descends into mental illness whereas Susanna’s story is about her time in a mental institution and experiencing other patients who are in similar situations.

“In all his travels the Bishop had seen no country like this. From the flat red sea of sand rose great rock mesas... The sandy soil of the plain had a light sprinkling of junipers, and was splotched with masses of blooming rabbit brush,-- that oliver-coloured plant that grows in high waves like a tossing sea, at this season covered with a thatch of bloom, yellow as gorse, or orange like marigolds.” 94 Both women describe the land of desert with such vividness that one is not left with the idea of a barren, sandy soil but an environment that is rich with history as well as life. This life and history of the land are a part of the culture.

However instead of employing historical contexts to create the tension, Ondaatje makes subtle but explicit comments on historical oblivion to individuals and their stories. History is implicitly considered as a master narrative that allows no space to articulate local narratives and to account for the richness, variety and complexity of human experience. To counterbalance the

The novels, “Beloved” written by Toni Morrison and “The Color Purple” written by Alice Walker both represent two women, the protagonist of both books, are able to accept their past and be able to find fulfillment and move on with their lives to be something better than were they were left off. Comparing acts of love and the moral support from the community to be the strong independent women they originally are. Toni Morrison and Alice Walker represent these two women, Celie and Sethe, in ways that they have the potential to help others but, when it comes to themselves they back down, which is what is not realized by these women.

Nine patriarchs found a town. Four women flee a life. Only one paradise is attained. Toni Morrison's novel Paradise revolves around the concept of "paradise," and those who believe they have it and those who actually do. Morrison uses a town and a former convent, each with its own religious center, to tell her tale about finding solace in an oppressive world. Whether fleeing inter- and intra-racial conflict or emotional hurt, the characters travel a path of self-isolation and eventual redemption. In her novel Paradise, Toni Morrison uses the town of Ruby and four broken women to demonstrate how "paradise" can not be achieved through isolation, but rather only through understanding and acceptance.

While the struggle to individually survive is inherent in Toni Morrison’s Jazz, what stands out more is the way companionship helps the characters to survive. The relationships that develop within the story are potent in their effects on characters, especially Joe Trace, a fifty-three year old man struggling with a failing marriage. Trying to fulfill his own desires, he has an affair. But because he kills Dorcas, his young lover who does not truly love him, Joe finds himself isolated from his wife and the rest of society. By reestablishing his relationships and connections to people who want to truly care for him, Joe is able to make himself whole again.