Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Call and whatsApp on

8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

100 Best Modern Novels

Recommended readings for our students by Vineet
Pandey sir
The 100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th Century

Part- A

Ulysses, James Joyce (1922)

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (1916)

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1958)

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (1932)

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (1929)

Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961)

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler (1941)

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence (1913)

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939)

Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry (1947)

The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler (1903)

1984, George Orwell (1949)

1|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

I, Claudius, Robert Graves (1934)

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (1927)

An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser (1925)

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers (1940)

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (1952)

Native Son, Richard Wright (1940)

Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow (1959)

Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara (1934)

U.S.A. (trilogy), John Dos Passos (1937—trilogy completed)

Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson (1919)

A Passage to India, E. M. Forster (1924)

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James (1902)

The Ambassadors, Henry James (1903)

Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934)

The Studs Lonigan Trilogy, James T. Farrell (1935)

The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford (1915)

Animal Farm, George Orwell (1946)

The Golden Bowl, Henry James (1904)

Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser (1900)

A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh (1934)

2|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner (1930)

All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren (1946)

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder (1927)

Howards End, E. M. Forster (1910)

Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin (1953)

The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene (1948)

Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954)

Deliverance, James Dickey (1969)

A Dance to the Music of Time (series), Anthony Powell (1975—series completed)

Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley (1928)

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (1926)

The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad (1907)

Nostromo, Joseph Conrad(1904)

The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence (1915)

Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence (1921)

Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller (1934)

The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer (1948)

Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth (1969)

Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov (1962)

Light in August, William Faulkner (1932)

On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)

3|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett (1930)

Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford (1950)

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton (1920)

Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm (1911)

The Moviegoer, Walker Percy (1961)

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (1927)

From Here to Eternity, James Jones (1951)

The Wapshot Chronicles, John Cheever (1957)

The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger (1951)

A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)

Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham (1915)

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (1902)

Main Street, Sinclair Lewis (1920)

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (1905)

The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell (1960—series completed)

A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes (1929)

A House for Mr. Biswas, V. S. Naipaul (1961)

The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West (1939)

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway (1929)

Scoop, Evelyn Waugh (1938)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (1961)

4|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

1. Ulysses, James Joyce (1922)

Summary
Plot Overview
Stephen Dedalus spends the early morning hours of June 16, 1904, remaining aloof from his
mocking friend, Buck Mulligan, and Buck’s English acquaintance, Haines. As Stephen leaves for
work, Buck orders him to leave the house key and meet them at the pub at 12:30. Stephen resents
Buck.
Around 10:00 A.M., Stephen teaches a history lesson to his class at Garrett Deasy’s boys’ school.
After class, Stephen meets with Deasy to receive his wages. The narrow-minded and prejudiced
Deasy lectures Stephen on life. Stephen agrees to take Deasy’s editorial letter about cattle
disease to acquaintances at the newspaper.

5|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

Stephen spends the remainder of his morning walking alone on Sandymount Strand, thinking
critically about his younger self and about perception. He composes a poem in his head and writes
it down on a scrap torn from Deasy’s letter.

At 8:00 A.M. the same morning, Leopold Bloom fixes breakfast and brings his wife her mail and
breakfast in bed. One of her letters is from Molly’s concert tour manager, Blazes Boylan (Bloom
suspects he is also Molly’s lover)—Boylan will visit at 4:00 this afternoon. Bloom returns
downstairs, reads a letter from their daughter, Milly, then goes to the outhouse.
At 10:00 A.M., Bloom picks up an amorous letter from the post office—he is corresponding with a
woman named Martha Clifford under the pseudonym Henry Flower. He reads the tepid letter,
ducks briefly into a church, then orders Molly’s lotion from the pharmacist. He runs into Bantam
Lyons, who mistakenly gets the impression that Bloom is giving him a tip on the horse Throwaway
in the afternoon’s Gold Cup race.
Around 11:00 A.M., Bloom rides with Simon Dedalus (Stephen’s father), Martin Cunningham, and
Jack Power to the funeral of Paddy Dignam. The men treat Bloom as somewhat of an outsider. At
the funeral, Bloom thinks about the deaths of his son and his father.
At noon, we find Bloom at the offices of the Freeman newspaper, negotiating an advertisement for
Keyes, a liquor merchant. Several idle men, including editor Myles Crawford, are hanging around
in the office, discussing political speeches. Bloom leaves to secure the ad. Stephen arrives at the
newspaper with Deasy’s letter. Stephen and the other men leave for the pub just as Bloom is
returning. Bloom’s ad negotiation is rejected by Crawford on his way out.
At 1:00 P.M., Bloom runs into Josie Breen, an old flame, and they discuss Mina Purefoy, who is in
labor at the maternity hospital. Bloom stops in Burton’s restaurant, but he decides to move on to
Davy Byrne’s for a light lunch. Bloom reminisces about an intimate afternoon with Molly on Howth.
Bloom leaves and is walking toward the National Library when he spots Boylan on the street and
ducks into the National Museum.
At 2:00 P.M., Stephen is informally presenting his “Hamlet theory” in the National Library to the
poet A.E. and the librarians John Eglinton, Best, and Lyster. A.E. is dismissive of Stephen’s theory
and leaves. Buck enters and jokingly scolds Stephen for failing to meet him and Haines at the pub.
On the way out, Buck and Stephen pass Bloom, who has come to obtain a copy of Keyes’ ad.

6|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

At 4:00 P.M., Simon Dedalus, Ben Dollard, Lenehan, and Blazes Boylan converge at the Ormond
Hotel bar. Bloom notices Boylan’s car outside and decides to watch him. Boylan soon leaves for
his appointment with Molly, and Bloom sits morosely in the Ormond restaurant—he is briefly
mollified by Dedalus’s and Dollard’s singing. Bloom writes back to Martha, then leaves to post the
letter.
At 5:00 P.M., Bloom arrives at Barney Kiernan’s pub to meet Martin Cunningham about the
Dignam family finances, but Cunningham has not yet arrived. The citizen, a belligerent Irish
nationalist, becomes increasingly drunk and begins attacking Bloom’s Jewishness. Bloom stands
up to the citizen, speaking in favor of peace and love over xenophobic violence. Bloom and the
citizen have an altercation on the street before Cunningham’s carriage carries Bloom away.
Bloom relaxes on Sandymount Strand around sunset, after his visit to Mrs. Dignam’s house
nearby. A young woman, Gerty MacDowell, notices Bloom watching her from across the beach.
Gerty subtly reveals more and more of her legs while Bloom surreptitiously masturbates. Gerty
leaves, and Bloom dozes.

At 10:00 P.M., Bloom wanders to the maternity hospital to check on Mina Purefoy. Also at the
hospital are Stephen and several of his medi-c-al student friends, drinking and talking boisterously
about subjects related to birth. Bloom agrees to join them, though he privately disapproves of their
revelry in light of Mrs. Purefoy’s struggles upstairs. Buck arrives, and the men proceed to Burke’s
pub. At closing time, Stephen convinces his friend Lynch to go to the brothel section of town and
Bloom follows, feeling protective.
Bloom finally locates Stephen and Lynch at Bella Cohen’s brothel. Stephen is drunk and imagines
that he sees the ghost of his mother—full of rage, he shatters a lamp with his walking stick. Bloom
runs after Stephen and finds him in an argument with a British soldier who knocks him out.

Bloom revives Stephen and takes him for coffee at a cabman’s shelter to sober up. Bloom invites
Stephen back to his house.

Well after midnight, Stephen and Bloom arrive back at Bloom’s house. They drink cocoa and talk
about their respective backgrounds. Bloom asks Stephen to stay the night. Stephen politely

7|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

refuses. Bloom sees him out and comes back in to find evidence of Boylan’s visit. Still, Bloom is at
peace with the world and he climbs into bed, tells Molly of his day and requests breakfast in bed.

After Bloom falls asleep, Molly remains awake, surprised by Bloom’s request for breakfast in bed.
Her mind wanders to her childhood in Gibraltar, her afternoon of sex with Boylan, her singing
career, Stephen Dedalus. Her thoughts of Bloom vary wildly over the course of the monologue, but
it ends with a reminiscence of their intimate moment at Howth and a positive affirmation.

2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Summary
Plot Overview

8|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn
about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but
unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently
to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick’s next-
door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic
mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.

Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social
connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class.
Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her
husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan
Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also
learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson,
who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New
York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a
vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom
about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary
parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly
young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.”
Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his
mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in
love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the
bay from his mansion. Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to
impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is
afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to
have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward
reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.

9|Page
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a
luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that
Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair,
he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to
drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that
he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife
that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities.
Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg
with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that
Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick
learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to
take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of
the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must
have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally
shoots himself.

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the
Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the
emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as
Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of
happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s
power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of
dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.

10 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (1916)

Summary
Plot Overview
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a boy growing up in
Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, as he gradually decides to cast off all his social,
familial, and religious constraints to live a life devoted to the art of writing. As a young boy,
Stephen's Catholic faith and Irish nationality heavily influence him. He attends a strict religious
boarding school called Clongowes Wood College. At first, Stephen is lonely and homesick at the
school, but as time passes he finds his place among the other boys. He enjoys his visits home,
even though family tensions run high after the death of the Irish political leader Charles Stewart
Parnell. This sensitive subject becomes the topic of a furious, politically charged argument over the
family's Christmas dinner.

11 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

Stephen's father, Simon, is inept with money, and the family sinks deeper and deeper into debt.
After a summer spent in the company of his Uncle Charles, Stephen learns that the family cannot
afford to send him back to Clongowes, and that they will instead move to Dublin. Stephen starts
attending a prestigious day school called Belvedere, where he grows to excel as a writer and as an
actor in the student theater. His first sexual experience, with a young Dublin prostitute, unleashes
a storm of guilt and shame in Stephen, as he tries to reconcile his physical desires with the stern
Catholic morality of his surroundings. For a while, he ignores his religious upbringing, throwing
himself with debauched abandon into a variety of sins—masturbation, gluttony, and more visits to
prostitutes, among others. Then, on a three-day religious retreat, Stephen hears a trio of fiery
sermons about sin, judgment, and hell. Deeply shaken, the young man resolves to rededicate
himself to a life of Christian piety.

Stephen begins attending Mass every day, becoming a model of Catholic piety, abstinence, and
self-denial. His religious devotion is so pronounced that the director of his school asks him to
consider entering the priesthood. After briefly considering the offer, Stephen realizes that the
austerity of the priestly life is utterly incompatible with his love for sensual beauty. That day,
Stephen learns from his sister that the family will be moving, once again for financial reasons.
Anxiously awaiting news about his acceptance to the university, Stephen goes for a walk on the
beach, where he observes a young girl wading in the tide. He is struck by her beauty, and realizes,
in a moment of epiphany, that the love and desire of beauty should not be a source of shame.
Stephen resolves to live his life to the fullest, and vows not to be constrained by the boundaries of
his family, his nation, and his religion.

Stephen moves on to the university, where he develops a number of strong friendships, and is
especially close with a young man named Cranly. In a series of conversations with his
companions, Stephen works to formulate his theories about art. While he is dependent on his
friends as listeners, he is also determined to create an independent existence, liberated from the
expectations of friends and family. He becomes more and more determined to free himself from all
limiting pressures, and eventually decides to leave Ireland to escape them. Like his namesake, the
mythical Daedalus, Stephen hopes to build himself wings on which he can fly above all obstacles
and achieve a life as an artist.

12 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1958)

Summary
Plot Overview
In the novel’s foreword, the fictional John Ray, Jr., Ph.D., explains the strange story that will follow.
According to Ray, he received the manuscript, entitled Lolita, or the Confession of a White
Widowed Male, from the author’s lawyer. The author himself, known by the pseudonym of
Humbert Humbert (or H. H.), died in jail of coronary thrombosis while awaiting a trial. Ray asserts
that while the author’s actions are despicable, his writing remains beautiful and persuasive. He
also indicates that the novel will become a favorite in psychiatric circles as well as encourage
parents to raise better children in a better world.

In the manuscript, Humbert relates his peaceful upbringing on the Riviera, where he encounters
his first love, the twelve-year-old Annabel Leigh. Annabel and the thirteen-year-old Humbert never
consummate their love, and Annabel’s death from typhus four months later haunts Humbert.
Although Humbert goes on to a career as a teacher of English literature, he spends time in a
mental institution and works a succession of odd jobs. Despite his marriage to an adult woman,
which eventually fails, Humbert remains obsessed with sexually desirable and sexually aware
young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them, remind him of Annabel, though he fails to find
another like her. Eventually, Humbert comes to the United States and takes a room in the house of
widow Charlotte Haze in a sleepy, suburban New England town. He becomes instantly infatuated

13 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

with her twelve-year-old daughter Dolores, also known as Lolita. Humbert follows Lolita’s moves
constantly, occasionally flirts with her, and confides his pedophiliac longings to a journal.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Haze, whom Humbert loathes, has fallen in love with him. When Charlotte
sends Lolita off to summer camp, Humbert marries Charlotte in order to stay near his true love.
Humbert wants to be alone with Lolita and even toys with the idea of killing Charlotte, In the
manuscript, Humbert relates his peaceful upbringing on the Riviera, where he encounters his first
love, the twelve-year-old Annabel Leigh. Annabel and the thirteen-year-old Humbert never
consummate their love, and Annabel’s death from typhus four months later haunts Humbert.
Although Humbert goes on to a career as a teacher of English literature, he spends time in a
mental institution and works a succession of odd jobs. Despite his marriage to an adult woman,
which eventually fails, Humbert remains obsessed with sexually desirable and sexually aware
young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them, remind him of Annabel, though he fails to find
another like her. Eventually, Humbert comes to the United States and takes a room in the house of
widow Charlotte Haze in a sleepy, suburban New England town. He becomes instantly infatuated
with her twelve-year-old daughter Dolores, also known as Lolita. Humbert follows Lolita’s moves
constantly, occasionally flirts with her, and confides his pedophiliac longings to a journal.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Haze, whom Humbert loathes, has fallen in love with him. When Charlotte
sends Lolita off to summer camp, Humbert marries Charlotte in order to stay near his true love.
Humbert wants to be alone with Lolita and even toys with the idea of killing Charlotte, Humbert
goes to the summer camp and picks up Lolita. Only when they arrive at a motel does he tell her
that Charlotte has died. In his account of events, Humbert claims that Lolita seduces him, rather
than the other way around. The two drive across the country for nearly a year, during which time
Humbert becomes increasingly obsessed with Lolita and she learns to manipulate him. When she
engages in tantrums or refuses his advances, Humbert threatens to put her in an orphanage. At
the same time, a strange man seems to take an interest in Humbert and Lolita and appears to be
following them in their travels.

Humbert eventually gets a job at Beardsley College somewhere in the Northeast, and Lolita enrolls
in school. Her wish to socialize with boys her own age causes a strain in their relationship, and
Humbert becomes more restrictive in his rules. Nonetheless, he allows her to appear in a school
play. Lolita begins to behave secretively around Humbert, and he accuses her of being unfaithful

14 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

and takes her away on another road trip. On the road, Humbert suspects that they are being
followed. Lolita doesn’t notice anything, and Humbert accuses her of conspiring with their stalker.

Lolita becomes ill, and Humbert must take her to the hospital. However, when Humbert returns to
get her, the nurses tell him that her uncle has already picked her up. Humbert flies into a rage, but
then he calms himself and leaves the hospital, heartbroken and angry.

For the next two years, Humbert searches for Lolita, unearthing clues about her kidnapper in order
to exact his revenge. He halfheartedly takes up with a woman named Rita, but then he receives a
note from Lolita, now married and pregnant, asking for money. Assuming that Lolita has married
the man who had followed them on their travels, Humbert becomes determined to kill him. He finds
Lolita, poor and pregnant at seventeen. Humbert realizes that Lolita’s husband is not the man who
kidnapped her from the hospital. When pressed, Lolita admits that Clare Quilty, a playwright whose
presence has been felt from the beginning of the book, had taken her from the hospital. Lolita
loved Quilty, but he kicked her out when she refused to participate in a child pornography orgy.
Still devoted to Lolita, Humbert begs her to return to him. Lolita gently refuses. Humbert gives her
4,000 dollars and then departs. He tracks down Quilty at his house and shoots him multiple times,
killing him. Humbert is arrested and put in jail, where he continues to write his memoir, stipulating
that it can only be published upon Lolita’s death. After Lolita dies in childbirth, Humbert dies of
heart failure, and the manuscript is sent to John Ray, Jr., Ph.D.

15 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (1932)

Summary
Plot Overview
The novel opens in the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, where the Director of
the Hatchery and one of his assistants, Henry Foster, are giving a tour to a group of boys. The
boys learn about the Bokanovsky and Podsnap Processes that allow the Hatchery to produce
thousands of nearly identical human embryos. During the gestation period the embryos travel in
bottles along a conveyor belt through a factorylike building, and are conditioned to belong to one of
five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. The Alpha embryos are destined to become
the leaders and thinkers of the World State. Each of the succeeding castes is conditioned to be
slightly less physically and intellectually impressive. The Epsilons, stunted and stupefied by
oxygen deprivation and chemical treatments, are destined to perform menial labor. Lenina

16 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

Crowne, an employee at the factory, describes to the boys how she vaccinates embryos destined
for tropical climates.

The Director then leads the boys to the Nursery, where they observe a group of Delta infants being
reprogrammed to dislike books and flowers. The Director explains that this conditioning helps to make
Deltas docile and eager consumers. He then tells the boys about the “hypnopaedic” (sleep-teaching) methods
used to teach children the morals of the World State. In a room where older children are napping, a
whispering voice is heard repeating a lesson in “Elementary Class Consciousness.”

Outside, the Director shows the boys hundreds of naked children engaged in sexual play and
games like “Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.” Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers,
introduces himself to the boys and begins to explain the history of the World State, focusing on the
State’s successful efforts to remove strong emotions, desires, and human relationships from
society. Meanwhile, inside the Hatchery, Lenina chats in the bathroom with Fanny Crowne about
her relationship with Henry Foster. Fanny chides Lenina for going out with Henry almost
exclusively for four months, and Lenina admits she is attracted to the strange, somewhat funny-
looking Bernard Marx. In another part of the Hatchery, Bernard is enraged when he overhears a
conversation between Henry and the Assistant Predestinator about “having” Lenina.

After work, Lenina tells Bernard that she would be happy to accompany him on the trip to the
Savage Reservation in New Mexico to which he had invited her. Bernard, overjoyed but
embarrassed, flies a helicopter to meet a friend of his, Helmholtz Watson. He and Helmholtz
discuss their dissatisfaction with the World State. Bernard is primarily disgruntled because he is
too small and weak for his caste; Helmholtz is unhappy because he is too intelligent for his job
writing hypnopaedic phrases. In the next few days, Bernard asks his superior, the Director, for
permission to visit the Reservation. The Director launches into a story about a visit to the
Reservation he had made with a woman twenty years earlier. During a storm, he tells Bernard, the
woman was lost and never recovered. Finally, he gives Bernard the permit, and Bernard and
Lenina depart for the Reservation, where they get another permit from the Warden. Before
heading into the Reservation, Bernard calls Helmholtz and learns that the Director has grown

17 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

weary of what he sees as Bernard’s difficult and unsocial behavior and is planning to exile Bernard
to Iceland when he returns. Bernard is angry and distraught, but decides to head into the
Reservation anyway.

On the Reservation, Lenina and Bernard are shocked to see its aged and ill residents; no one in
the World State has visible signs of aging. They witness a religious ritual in which a young man is
whipped, and find it abhorrent. After the ritual they meet John, a fair-skinned young man who is
isolated from the rest of the village. John tells Bernard about his childhood as the son of a woman
named Linda who was rescued by the villagers some twenty years ago. Bernard realizes that
Linda is almost certainly the woman mentioned by the Director. Talking to John, he learns that
Linda was ostracized because of her willingness to sleep with all the men in the village, and that as
a result John was raised in isolation from the rest of the village. John explains that he learned to
read using a book called The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo and The
Complete Works of Shakespeare, the latter given to Linda by one of her lovers, Popé. John tells
Bernard that he is eager to see the “Other Place”—the “brave new world” that his mother has told
him so much about. Bernard invites him to return to the World State with him. John agrees but
insists that Linda be allowed to come as well.

While Lenina, disgusted with the Reservation, takes enough soma to knock her out for eighteen
hours, Bernard flies to Santa Fe where he calls Mustapha Mond and receives permission to bring
John and Linda back to the World State. Meanwhile, John breaks into the house where Lenina is
lying intoxicated and unconscious, and barely suppresses his desire to touch her. Bernard, Lenina,
John, and Linda fly to the World State, where the Director is waiting to exile Bernard in front of his
Alpha coworkers. But Bernard turns the tables by introducing John and Linda. The shame of being
a “father”—the very word makes the onlookers laugh nervously—causes the Director to resign,
leaving Bernard free to remain in London.

John becomes a hit with London society because of his strange life led on the Reservation. But
while touring the factories and schools of the World State, John becomes increasingly disturbed by
the society that he sees. His sexual attraction to Lenina remains, but he desires more than simple
lust, and he finds himself terribly confused. In the process, he also confuses Lenina, who wonders

18 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

why John does not wish to have sex with her. As the discoverer and guardian of the “Savage,”
Bernard also becomes popular. He quickly takes advantage of his new status, sleeping with many
women and hosting dinner parties with important guests, most of whom dislike Bernard but are
willing to placate him if it means they get to meet John. One night John refuses to meet the guests,
including the Arch-Community Songster, and Bernard’s social standing plummets.

After Bernard introduces them, John and Helmholtz quickly take to each other. John reads
Helmholtz parts of Romeo and Juliet, but Helmholtz cannot keep himself from laughing at a
serious passage about love, marriage, and parents—ideas that are ridiculous, almost scatological
in World State culture.

Fueled by his strange behavior, Lenina becomes obsessed with John, refusing Henry’s invitation
to see a feely. She takes soma and visits John at Bernard’s apartment, where she hopes to
seduce him. But John responds to her advances with curses, blows, and lines from Shakespeare.
She retreats to the bathroom while he fields a phone call in which he learns that Linda, who has
been on permanent soma-holiday since her return, is about to die. At the Hospital for the Dying he
watches her die while a group of lower-caste boys receiving their “death conditioning” wonder why
she is so unattractive. The boys are simply curious, but John becomes enraged. After Linda dies,
John meets a group of Delta clones who are receiving their soma ration. He tries to convince them
to revolt, throwing the soma out the window, and a riot results. Bernard and Helmholtz, hearing of
the riot, rush to the scene and come to John’s aid. After the riot is calmed by police with soma
vapor, John, Helmholtz, and Bernard are arrested and brought to the office of Mustapha Mond.

John and Mond debate the value of the World State’s policies, John arguing that they dehumanize
the residents of the World State and Mond arguing that stability and happiness are more important
than humanity. Mond explains that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and
religion. John protests that, without these things, human life is not worth living. Bernard reacts
wildly when Mond says that he and Helmholtz will be exiled to distant islands, and he is carried
from the room. Helmholtz accepts the exile readily, thinking it will give him a chance to write, and
soon follows Bernard out of the room. John and Mond continue their conversation. They discuss
religion and the use of soma to control negative emotions and social harmony.

19 | P a g e
Vineet Pandey’s Classes UGC NET ENGLISH LITERATURE. Call and whatsApp on
8929720093 , 8587095827 Website- www.sahityaclasses.com

John bids Helmholtz and Bernard good-bye. Refused the option of following them to the islands by
Mond, he retreats to a lighthouse in the countryside where he gardens and attempts to purify
himself by self-flagellation. Curious World State citizens soon catch him in the act, and reporters
descend on the lighthouse to film news reports and a feely. After the feely, hordes of people
descend on the lighthouse and demand that John whip himself. Lenina comes and approaches
John with her arms open. John reacts by brandishing his whip and screaming “Kill it! Kill it!” The
intensity of the scene causes an orgy in which John takes part. The next morning he wakes up
and, overcome with anger and sadness at his submission to World State society, hangs himself.

20 | P a g e