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Of all the works by García Márquez , this novel is the most fascinating and the most complex. From the very beginning, we recognize the same elements — albeit, more elaborate ones — as those of the characters and situations in his shorter fiction. In the words of the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa: "100 Hundred Years of Solitude extends and magnifies the world erected by his previous books." Indeed, the novel is a brilliant amalgamation of elements from all of García Márquez' previous stories, including elements from the fiction of other American novelists, biblical parables, and personal experiences known only to the author., The basic structure of the novel traces the chronicle of the Buendía family over a century. It is the history of a family with inescapable repetitions, confusions, and progressive decline. Beginning sometime in the early nineteenth century, the novel's time span covers the family's rise and fall from the foundation of Macondo by the youthful patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, until the death of the last member of the line. Throughout the narrative, the fates of the Buendías and Macondo are parallel reflections. In fact, we witness the history of a people who, like the wandering tribes of Israel, are best understood in terms of their genesis from a single family., 100 Hundred Years of Solitude exaggerates events and personal characteristics to such a degree that it is very difficult to define its predominant aim. Sometimes it seems to be satire; at other times it appears to be an evocation of the magical. Perhaps we can be safest in observing that the novel demonstrates that the line between fantasy and reality is very arbitrary. It shows, for instance, that our sense of technical and material progress is relative, and that backwardness, for instance, can be caused as much by social isolation as by historical distance in time. Everything depends upon one's cultural reference. A commonplace telescope is a fabulous instrument to either people isolated from modern civilization, or, at some time or another, to all children., 100 Hundred Years of Solitude consists of twenty unnumbered chapters or episodes. The first chapter narrates the genesis of the Buendía clan in the fictional town of Macondo. The story begins in the memory of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, son of Macondo's founder, as he recalls the first time that his father took him to "discover ice." The Colonel's memory evokes a pristine world, but this moment is overshadowed by the fact that he is facing a firing squad. At once, the omniscient narrator makes us aware that we are in the memory of a character as well as listening to a historical myth. Having lived in physical isolation, as well as psychological solitude, the people of Macondo learn about "progress" from the wandering gypsies — one of whom, Melquíades, possesses a manuscript in Sanskrit code that contains the history and fate of the Buendía family. This narrative will be the manuscript that is being decoded by the last adult Buendía just before he dies. The novel will constantly shift through time, so that memory and linear, chronicle time are mixed together in order to give the action a mournful, ghostly tone., The Colonel's childhood memory — as he faces an execution squad — introduces us to the irony of Macondo, an ebullient jungle village that time had once forgotten and that was located at a point that seemed "eternally sad." In the beginning, before "progress" came to Macondo, José Arcadio Buendía and his wife, Úrsula, because they were cousins, lived in fear of begetting a child with a pig's tail. We are told that a boy with such a tail had been born to Úrsula's aunt and José Arcadio Buendía's uncle. This fear is later to be realized in the love affair between the only remaining Buendías, the bookish Aureliano Babilonia and his aunt, Amaranta Úrsula. Incest, then, becomes the original sin that threatens six succeeding generations of Buendías. From the fear of having a baby with a pig's tall, the novel's principal theme of solitude is psychological, as much as geographical; their hereditary fear gives them an irrational zeal for the fantastic, and it cripples their ability for sincere love and honest communication., After her marriage to José Arcadio Buendía, Úrsula refuses to consummate their union for fear of conceiving a monster. She wears a chastity belt to prevent her husband from having intercourse with her. One day, however, José Arcadio Buendía defeats a poor loser in a cockfight. Prudencio Aguilar taunts the young Buendía about Úrsula's virginity, an insult that is aimed at José Arcadio's manhood. José Arcadio, in an impetuous rage, throws an ancient spear through Aguilar's throat and kills him. Úrsula later sees the dead man's ghost trying to plug the hole in his throat with "a plug of esparto grass.", Aguilar's ghost haunts the couple until they are forced to flee their ancestral village. Thus, the Buendías set out with some of their friends on a long journey through the jungle. Two exhausting years later, after camping in the wilds one night, José Arcadio Buendía has a dream about a city of houses with mirrored walls. He takes this dream as a divine sign, and he convinces his followers to build Macondo on the very site., When José Arcadio Buendía, his wife Úrsula, and some twenty other adventurers settle there, the world is said to be so recent that many things do not have names and thus "it was necessary to point." José Arcadio organizes his small settlement into a model community. Yet there is already something strange about it. José Arcadio had planned the streets so as to shade all the homes from the tropical sun, but Macondo remains a burning place where the hinges and door knockers melt with the heat, "a peninsula surrounded by water where water was never known to be." When a heat wave occurs in Macondo, men and beasts go mad and birds attack houses; later, the town is afflicted by a plague of insomnia, and, even later, things have to be labeled. Eventually these labels have to be placed in the context of a thing's function. Occurring shortly after Rebeca's mysterious arrival, the insomnia plague not only causes the loss of memory but prevents sleep. The result is that the townspeople stay up nights amusing one another with nonsensical tales like the one about the capon:, As the names and uses of things are being lost, José Arcadio builds a primitive computer dictionary. But Melquíades, the gypsy, returns to Macondo with a cure for the insomnia plague when José Arcadio has programmed fourteen thousand entries. The destruction of memory, like senility, signals the beginning of the transformation of consciousness; the insomnia plague is a metaphor for Macondo's prehistoric innocence, just as its cure is the mark of its cyclical return to history, to irreversible chronological and psychological time, and to a move out of a fantastic isolation., This fabulous setting is the stage for the action of the novel as it relates to the Buendías. As in the Bible, the beginnings of things are in the words that bring them to the light of human consciousness. Hence, the narrative starts in the memory of how a child discovers for the first time something that is quite commonplace and yet which we know will be discovered by all children for all time to come. In this case, the child is not only the Colonel but his father as well, the patriarch José Arcadio Buendía, who has a childlike fascination with things that were commonplace to all other people except the Macondians.	100 Years of Solitude
12 Years a Slave covers five primary periods in Solomon Northup’s life: 1. Solomon Northup: Free Man In Chapters I and II, Northup tells of his life as a free black man living in upstate New York. Born in July 1808, he was the son of an emancipated slave. He grew up working on a farm at his father’s side, and also was educated to a degree of competence in reading and writing. Additionally, he learned to play the violin, a skill that would be both a blessing and curse to him in coming years. At age 21, he married Anne Hampton, and they settled down to raise a family. Solomon worked in many trades, including farming, lumberjacking, and performing on the violin, while Anne earned money as a cook. They had three children. In 1841, Solomon met two white men who offered him lucrative work with a circus—if he would travel with them to Washington, D.C. Unsuspecting, he joined them in their travels and in Washington, D.C., after a day of unusual revelry and drinking, became terribly ill. On his way to see a doctor, he passed out. When he woke up, Solomon Northup was alone, chained in darkness. 2. Solomon Northup: Captive This second period of 12 Years a Slave, told in Chapters III–VI, relates how Solomon finds himself a prisoner in the slave pen of James H. Burch, a brutal slave trader in Washington, D.C. When Solomon protests his captivity and asserts his right to freedom, Burch responds by beating him into submission and threatening to kill him if he ever mentions his freedom again. At length, Solomon is allowed to join the other slaves being held by Burch, and he discovers just how hopeless his situation is. Surrounded by slaves and a few other kidnap victims, he is transported downriver, eventually landing in New Orleans, Louisiana. Solomon and the rest of “Burch’s gang” are transferred into the slave pen of Burch’s associate, Theophilus Freeman. Freeman changes Solomon’s name to “Platt,” thereby erasing any connection to his past. Solomon is put up for sale, but his sale is delayed when he contracts smallpox, which nearly kills him. After he finally recovers, he is sold, along with a slave girl named Eliza, to a man named William Ford. 3. Solomon Northup: Slave Next begins the third leg of Solomon Northup’s journey, told in Chapters VII–XI. Solomon is now a full-fledged slave named “Platt,” working on the plantation and lumber mill of William Ford, deep in the heart of Louisiana. Ford is a kindly master, devout in his Christian faith, and given to generosity toward his slaves. Solomon finds it almost a pleasure to be in Ford’s service and even figures out a way for Ford to save considerable time and money by transporting lumber via waterway instead of by land. Solomon is well-liked by Ford in return. However, a series of financial missteps result in Ford selling Platt to a cruel carpenter named John M. Tibeats. Tibeats soon becomes Platt’s worst enemy, constantly threatening and berating him. While working on a project, Tibeats becomes so enraged that he attempts to whip Platt. Platt is the stronger of the two, though, and he turns the tables on his new master, whipping him instead. Hell-bent on revenge, Tibeats twice attempts to murder Platt. Only the intervention of William Ford and his overseer, Mr. Chapin, saves the slave’s life. Unable to kill him, yet bearing murderous hatred toward him, Tibeats sells Platt to the notorious “nigger breaker,” Edwin Epps. 4. Solomon Northup: Slave Under Edwin Epps The fourth phase of Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave, told in Chapters XII–XX, focuses on the ten years he lived under the tyranny of Edwin Epps on two different plantations in Bayou Boeuf, along the banks of the Red River in Louisiana. Epps is indeed a cruel master. A whip is his constant companion, and he uses it almost daily on his slaves. Solomon describes his life under Epps in detail, relating stories of abuse, humiliation, and deprivation among all the slaves. Patsey, a slave girl, gets the worst of Epps’ treatment: She is repeatedly raped by him and also whipped by him at the insistence of his jealous wife. At the worst point, she visits a friend at a nearby plantation simply to get a bar of soap because Epps’ wife won’t allow her to have any. When Patsey returns, Epps is furious, thinking her guilty of a sexual encounter. Platt is forced to whip a naked, helpless Patsey while she screams for mercy. The years pass by, and Solomon almost loses hope. Then he meets a carpenter named Bass, an abolitionist from Canada who is hired to work on a building project for Epps. Bass learns of Solomon’s story and decides to help. He sends letters to Solomon’s friends in the North, asking them to come and rescue the slave from his captivity. 5. Solomon Northup: Free Man Again The final section of 12 Years of Slave, Chapters XXI and XXII (and Appendix), tells of Solomon’s escape from captivity. Thanks to the faithfulness of Bass, Solomon’s friends in the North are alerted to his location and come to set him free. Henry B. Northup, a white man who is a relative of the person who once owned Solomon’s father, gathers legal support and travels to Louisiana to find the slave. After some searching, he finds “Platt” and, with the help of a local sheriff, emancipates him from the clutches of Edwin Epps. They travel back to New York, stopping for a time in Washington, D.C., to pursue legal charges against James H. Burch for his role in the kidnapping of Solomon Northup. In the end, though, Burch is acquitted because of false witnesses and racist bias in the courtroom. After that, Solomon is finally reunited with his family in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he finds that his daughter has married and he is now a grandfather. His grandson has been named in his honor: Solomon Northup Staunton.	12 Years a Slave
In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful Big Brother. Defying a ban on individuality, Winston dares to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with Julia. These criminal deeds bring Winston into the eye of the opposition, who then must reform the nonconformist. George Orwell's 1984 introduced the watchwords for life without freedom: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU., Written by: George Orwell, Type of Work: novel, Genres: utopian literature; social criticism, First Published: 1949, Setting: Oceania, Main Characters: Winston Smith; Julia; O'Brien; Big Brother/Emmanuel Goldstein, Major Thematic Topics: mutability of the past; the existence of fact through memory; memory; history; language; oppression of writers, Motifs: repressed sexuality; dreams, Major Symbols: Newspeak; prole woman; birds; telescreens; glass paperweight, The three most important aspects of 1984:, The setting of 1984 is a dystopia: an imagined world that is far worse than our own, as opposed to a utopia, which is an ideal place or state. Other dystopian novels include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's own Animal Farm., When George Orwell wrote 1984, the year that gives the book its title was still almost 40 years in the future. Some of the things Orwell imagined that would come to pass were the telescreen, a TV that observes those who are watching it, and a world consisting of three megastates rather than hundreds of countries. In the novel, the country of Eastasia apparently consists of China and its satellite nations; Eurasia is the Soviet Union; and Oceania comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies., Another of Orwell's creations for 1984 is Newspeak, a form of English that the book's totalitarian government utilizes to discourage free thinking. Orwell believed that, without a word or words to express an idea, the idea itself was impossible to conceive and retain. Thus Newspeak has eliminated the word "bad," replacing it with the less-harsh "ungood." The author's point was that government can control us through the words.	1984
In 1921, Frederic G. Melcher, coeditor of Publishers Weekly and founder of Children's Book Week, proposed an award for authors of distinguished American children's books to the American Library Association (ALA) meeting of the Children's Librarians' Section. The purpose of the award would be:, Melcher suggested that the award be named after John Newbery, an eighteenth-century English writer, publisher, and bookseller who had a great influence on the development of children's literature in Great Britain as well as in the United States. The children's librarians accepted Melcher's proposal and, in 1922, it was approved by the ALA Executive Board, becoming the first children's book award in the world., First awarded in 1922, the John Newbery Medal is a prestigious award given each year to the author of the book voted the most distinguished contribution to children's literature published in the United States during the previous year. The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) of the American Library Association appoints a 15member Newbery Committee each year to select the winner of the John Newbery Medal. The winner is announced in January or February at the ALA's midwinter convention., The Newbery Committee adheres to specific criteria when deciding on the Newbery Medal winner. The committee members consider the theme or concept of the book, plot development, character development, setting, appropriateness of the author's style, and the accuracy, clarity, and organization of the presentation of information to the reader. Because books contain different literary qualities, a book does not need to exhibit excellence in each of these areas; however, a book should have distinguished qualities in all areas that are relevant to a particular book. A book must also portray excellence of presentation for an audience of children. The Committee makes its decision based primarily on the text. If the overall design of a book, the illustrations, or other aspects of a book distract from the text, they are considered in the decision also. The Committee bases the award on literary quality and quality of presentation for children, not on popularity or didactic intent (the intent to convey educational or moral messages). The Committee requires that authors who win the Newbery Medal be citizens or residents of the United States., The Newbery Medal, designed by René Paul Chambellan, is bronze, engraved with the winner's name and the date. The medal bears the inscription, "For the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.", The first Newbery Medal was awarded in 1922 to Hendrik Willem van Loon, author of The Story of Mankind. Since that time, most authors have won the medal for writing distinguished fiction, although some authors of works of poetry and biographies have won, too. Along with the Newbery Medal, the ALSC also cites an unspecified number of "honor books," other books the Committee has reviewed and deemed excellent, and presents the authors with certificates., The Newbery Medal is the most well-known children's book award in the United States. All of the Newbery Medal books and "honor" books are distinctive literature for children worthy of attention.	The 1990s Newbery Medal Winners
In most of Faulkner's earlier fiction, however, the question of man's relation to the past functioned as a minor theme. In Sartoris (1929) this question pervaded the entire novel. In Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner devotes his mature powers to a full spectrum examination of man's reliance on the past and of the extent to which man is responsible for the past. In this novel, Faulkner also attempts to connect or show the relationship between man's present actions and those of the past. In previous novels, Faulkner's characters have struggled to achieve a significant and meaningful relationship with the past. In some instances, as with young Bayard Sartoris, too much reliance upon the past prevents the character from securing a firm grasp on the present and leads ultimately to disaster. Other characters reject the past too completely and, like Jason Compson in The Sound and the Fury, become the product of a materialistic age which has neither meaning nor virtues., The past, for Faulkner, cannot be completely rejected, but neither should it be the dominant influence on one's present life. Sartoris expresses this view perhaps with more forthrightness than does Absalom, Absalom!: "Yet the man who professes to care nothing about his forebears is only a little less vain than the man who bases all his actions on blood precedent." In looking back into the past, Absalom, Absalom! investigates man's efforts to reconstruct the causes which influence man's present actions and tries to determine whether or not these causes stem from the old virtues or from opposite motives., Absalom, Absalom! is often considered Faulkner's greatest achievement. It is also his greatest condemnation of the morals, mores, and ethics of his own southern culture. In this story of incest, fratricide, lust, ambition, and slavery, Faulkner presents a cumulative view of man being defeated by passions and ambitions beyond the scope of humanitarian ethics. Yet, even in condemning the values of the southern culture, Faulkner is able to present his material with excellent control and esthetic distance., Faulkner's strong condemnation of the values of the South emanates from the actual story which he has Quentin tell in response to a Northerner's question: "What is the South like?" Quentin then tells the story of the Sutpen family whose history must be seen as analogous to the history of the South. The father, Thomas Sutpen, stands for all the great and noble qualities found in the South and at the same time represents the failure of the South. Sutpen's basic belief that he could build a system of morals in the same manner as he would build anything else caused him and the South to overlook certain humanitarian values, since the wealth of both Sutpen and the Old South was built upon the enslavement of another race. Consequently, Thomas Sutpen's dedication to establishing his own great heritage (or design) is analogous to the rise and fall of the antebellum South, which established its design without considering the humanitarian implications of slavery., Perhaps Faulkner's strongest condemnation of the values of the South comes from the son's (Henry Sutpen's) willingly sanctioning incest but resorting to fratricide to prevent miscegenation. Various other aspects of the novel also are critiques of the Southern mode of living which Faulkner, like Quentin at the end of this novel, both loved and hated., Thus, in Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner has given us a novel which denies the moral basis upon which the old South was built, and a novel which inquires into the amount of responsibility the modern man should feel for the sins and evils of the past. Those who, like Sutpen, reject the past completely are destroyed; those, like Miss Rosa, who live only in the past become embittered and hateful; those like Mr. Compson who see the past only as a commentary of human fallibility become cynical and sardonic; and those like Quentin, who see in the events of the past a reflection of their own personal lives and desires, become suicides. Ultimately, Faulkner does not offer a definite answer to man's proper relationship with the past, but instead, he offers a thorough and devastating examination of various negative responses to the question.	Absalom, Absalom!