# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brave New World | Official Trailer | Peacock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND BY LEWIS CARROLL // ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close trailer - Nederlands ondertiteld

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A CHRISTMAS CAROL BY CHARLES DICKENS - ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Video SparkNotes: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World summary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BRAVE NEW WORLD | Aldous Huxley (SUMMARY) I Draw My Life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
harry potter and the sorcerer's stone spells

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Trying to imagine Spells in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? Check out Shmoop's visual take on what it's all about.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Video SparkNotes: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby summary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Story of LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring in 3 Minutes! | Arcade Cloud

# data[].attributes.headline
A Christmas Carol Test - Multiple Choice

# data[].attributes.subject
A Christmas Carol Test - Multiple Choice

# data[].attributes.headline
Harry Potter Philosopher's Stone Test - Open Questions

# data[].attributes.subject
Harry Potter Philosopher's Stone Test - Open Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Sorcerers Stone Test

# data[].attributes.headline
Harry Potter Philosopher's Stone Test - Multiple Choice Questions

# data[].attributes.subject
Harry Potter Philosopher's Stone Test - Multiple Choice Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Sorcerers Stone Test multiple choice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Did you know you can highlight text to take a note? x

1 of 25
Why does Tom hit Myrtle at his apartment in New York City?

Because she refuses to see him anymore

Because she asks him to divorce his wife

Because she taunts him about Daisy

Because she flirts with Nick

2 of 25
Where is Gatsby’s mansion located?

East Egg

Park Avenue

West Egg

Brooklyn

3 of 25
Where does Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy take place?

By the pool

At Nick’s house

At the golf tournament

At the yacht race

4 of 25
In what year is The Great Gatsby set?

1925

1924

1923

1922

5 of 25
Where were Nick and Tom educated?

Yale

Harvard

Princeton

Duke

6 of 25
What is Jordan Baker’s occupation?

Softball pitcher

Secretary

Philanthropist

Golfer

7 of 25
When he renews his acquaintance with Daisy at Nick’s house, what does Gatsby knock off of the mantle?

Nick’s pipe

A clock

Jordan’s golf trophy

Daisy’s picture

8 of 25
What is Nick’s home state?

North Dakota

Minnesota

Wisconsin

Florida

9 of 25
Why did Gatsby drop out of college?

He had an offer to go into the copper business with Dan Cody.

He and Daisy were getting married, and he needed a job.

He wanted to study Russian, but his college did not offer it.

He was humiliated by having to work as a janitor to pay his tuition.

10 of 25
Which millionaire hired the young Gatsby as an assistant?

Cody Baker

Clint McGowan

Hank McGowan

Dan Cody

11 of 25
Where is the valley of ashes?

Between West Egg and New York City

Between East Egg and West Egg

Between Death Valley and the Salinas Valley

Between Greenwich Village and Hell’s Kitchen

12 of 25
Who among the following comes to Gatsby’s funeral?

Gatsby’s father

Daisy

Tom

Klipspringer

13 of 25
Which woman is Tom’s extramarital lover?

Daisy

Ellen

Myrtle

Jordan

14 of 25
Who drives the car that kills Myrtle?

Jordan

Daisy

Gatsby

Tom

15 of 25
How are Daisy and Nick related?

They are brother and sister.

They are married.

They are step-siblings.

They are cousins.

16 of 25
Where did Daisy meet Gatsby?

Louisville

East Egg

West Egg

The Plaza Hotel

17 of 25
Where did Gatsby study after the war?

Cambridge

The Sorbonne

Oxford

Yale

18 of 25
On the day after the confrontation between Tom and Gatsby in New York City, what does Gatsby instruct his gardener not to do?

Drain the pool

Cut the grass

Rake the leaves

Plant corn

19 of 25
At the end of the novel, Daisy chooses to be with . . .

Gatsby

Tom

George Wilson

Nick

20 of 25
What are the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg?

A magazine ad

The lyrics of a song

A painting in the Guggenheim Museum

A signboard in the valley of ashes

21 of 25
Why does Nick move to New York?

To become a lawyer

To learn about the bond business

To attend college

To attend medical school

22 of 25
What did Fitzgerald call the 1920s?

The Roaring Twenties

The Gay Twenties

The Jazz Age

The Lost Generation

23 of 25
Why does Gatsby throw his weekly parties?

To impress Daisy.

To cover up his illegal activities.

To attract women from East Egg.

To impress his neighbors.

24 of 25
What is Meyer Wolfsheim’s claim to fame?

He made the first batch of bootleg alcohol to be sold in New York.

He once beat Al Capone in a fight.

He is a former violinist with the New York Philharmonic.

He rigged the 1919 World Series.

25 of 25
Where does Gatsby recognize Nick from?

Nick was an undergraduate at Oxford during the months Gatsby studied there

Nick works at the bond house where Gatsby’s stolen securities were taken from

Nick and Gatsby fought in the same battle in World War I

Gatsby has seen his next-door neighbor around, but assumed Nick was one of his own servants

Next section Chapter 1 Quick Quiz

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the great gatsby free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Gatsby: Full Book Quiz | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Test your knowledge on all of The Great Gatsby. Perfect prep for The Great Gatsby quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.headline
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  - SparkNotes Quizzes

# data[].attributes.subject
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  - SparkNotes Quizzes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
1. What does Oskar’s dad give Oskar during their last Reconnaissance Expedition?

A map of Central Park

A key

A riddle

A red pen

2. What is the first word Thomas loses?

No

I

Hello

Anna

3. What does Oskar find on the top shelf of his dad’s closet?

A letter from his grandfather

A blue vase

A tea kettle

A tambourine

4. What is Oskar hiding in his closet?

His dad’s pocket watch

His diary

The phone

A map

5. Where is Grandma when she writes her letter to Oskar?

The airport

The cemetery

Dresden

Her apartment

6. What does Thomas make a sculpture of when Grandma models for him?

Grandma

A caged animal

A carnivore

Anna

7. What does Oskar’s dad say could change the course of human history?

Moving a grain of sand

Being a pacifist

Everyone becoming vegan

Time traveling to save John Lennon

8. What does Abby Black have a photo of in her kitchen?

Her father

A cake

A key

An elephant

9. What categories do Thomas and Grandma divide their apartment into?

His and hers

Something and nothing

Past and present

Safe and dangerous

10. When Thomas looks at Grandma’s life story manuscript, what does he see?

Painful memories

Pages of gibberish

Blank pages

A masterful memoir

11. What role does Oskar play in his school production of Hamlet?

Yorick

Hamlet

Polonius

Horatio

12. What was Mr. Black’s last war?

The Vietnam War

Chopping down a tree

Battling loneliness

His wife’s cancer

13. After their argument, what does Oskar want his mom to find?

The key

His journal

His bruises

His letter to Stephen Hawking

14. What does Thomas photograph in the apartment he and Grandma buy after their marriage?

The doorknobs

The guest room

The windows

Their bed

15. What does Grandma do after Thomas leaves the second time?

Throws out his photographs

Moves to a new apartment

Burns his notebooks

Lets the animals loose

16. How does Oskar say he’s going to be a better person?

By befriending Ron

By volunteering at a soup kitchen

By hiding his feelings

By being more honest

17. What does Anna tell Thomas the last time she sees him?

She’s pregnant

She’s in love with someone else

She’s moving to America

She wants to become a nurse

18. What is the first thing the zookeeper tells Thomas to shoot?

The birds

The snakes

The carnivores

The planes

19. What part of Manhattan used to be part of the Sixth Borough?

The Empire State Building

Central Park

The Upper West Side

The Lower East Side

20. What is the first thing the renter tells Oskar?

I’m not here

I’m your grandpa

Go away

I don’t speak

21. What did Ruth Black’s husband use to keep in contact with her while on the road?

A spotlight

Letters

A tin can phone

Songs on the radio

22. Where does Grandma let Thomas watch Oskar from?

Her window

The guest room

The coat closet

The balcony

23. How does Abby Black know Oskar is coming?

She’s psychic

Oskar’s mom called

She’s a spy

Mr. Black told her

24. What did Grandma want to tell Anna the night before Anna died?

That she loved her

That she loved Thomas

That their dad hid Simon Goldberg

About the prisoner’s letter

25. What do Thomas and Oskar bury in Oskar’s dad’s grave?

Thomas’s letters

William Black’s key

Mr. Black’s index

Oskar’s feelings journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Full Book Quiz | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Test your knowledge on all of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Perfect prep for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.headline
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  Test - Open Questions

# data[].attributes.subject
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  Test - Open Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Test open questions

# data[].attributes.headline
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  Test - Multiple Choice

# data[].attributes.subject
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close  Test - Multiple Choice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Test multiple choice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animal Farm by George Orwell, an animated summary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Old Major, a prize-winning boar, gathers the animals of the Manor Farm for a meeting in the big barn. He tells them of a dream he has had in which all animals live together with no human beings to oppress or control them. He tells the animals that they must work toward such a paradise and teaches them a song called "Beasts of England," in which his dream vision is lyrically described. The animals greet Major's vision with great enthusiasm. When he dies only three nights after the meeting, three younger pigs-Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer-formulate his main principles into a philosophy called Animalism. Late one night, the animals manage to defeat the farmer Mr. Jones in a battle, running him off the land. They rename the property Animal Farm and dedicate themselves to achieving Major's dream. The cart-horse Boxer devotes himself to the cause with particular zeal, committing his great strength to the prosperity of the farm and adopting as a personal maxim the affirmation "I will work harder."

At first, Animal Farm prospers. Snowball works at teaching the animals to read, and Napoleon takes a group of young puppies to educate them in the principles of Animalism. When Mr. Jones reappears to take back his farm, the animals defeat him again, in what comes to be known as the Battle of the Cowshed, and take the farmer's abandoned gun as a token of their victory. As time passes, however, Napoleon and Snowball increasingly quibble over the future of the farm, and they begin to struggle with each other for power and influence among the other animals. Snowball concocts a scheme to build an electricity-generating windmill, but Napoleon solidly opposes the plan. At the meeting to vote on whether to take up the project, Snowball gives a passionate speech. Although Napoleon gives only a brief retort, he then makes a strange noise, and nine attack dogs-the puppies that Napoleon had confiscated in order to "educate"-burst into the barn and chase Snowball from the farm. Napoleon assumes leadership of Animal Farm and declares that there will be no more meetings. From that point on, he asserts, the pigs alone will make all of the decisions-for the good of every animal.

Napoleon now quickly changes his mind about the windmill, and the animals, especially Boxer, devote their efforts to completing it. One day, after a storm, the animals find the windmill toppled. The human farmers in the area declare smugly that the animals made the walls too thin, but Napoleon claims that Snowball returned to the farm to sabotage the windmill. He stages a great purge, during which various animals who have allegedly participated in Snowball's great conspiracy-meaning any animal who opposes Napoleon's uncontested leadership-meet instant death at the teeth of the attack dogs. With his leadership unquestioned (Boxer has taken up a second maxim, "Napoleon is always right"), Napoleon begins expanding his powers, rewriting history to make Snowball a villain. Napoleon also begins to act more and more like a human being-sleeping in a bed, drinking whisky, and engaging in trade with neighboring farmers. The original Animalist principles strictly forbade such activities, but Squealer, Napoleon's propagandist, justifies every action to the other animals, convincing them that Napoleon is a great leader and is making things better for everyone-despite the fact that the common animals are cold, hungry, and overworked.

Mr. Frederick, a neighboring farmer, cheats Napoleon in the purchase of some timber and then attacks the farm and dynamites the windmill, which had been rebuilt at great expense. After the demolition of the windmill, a pitched battle ensues, during which Boxer receives major wounds. The animals rout the farmers, but Boxer's injuries weaken him. When he later falls while working on the windmill, he senses that his time has nearly come. One day, Boxer is nowhere to be found. According to Squealer, Boxer has died in peace after having been taken to the hospital, praising the Rebellion with his last breath. In actuality, Napoleon has sold his most loyal and long-suffering worker to a glue maker in order to get money for whisky.

Years pass on Animal Farm, and the pigs become more and more like human beings-walking upright, carrying whips, and wearing clothes. Eventually, the seven principles of Animalism, known as the Seven Commandments and inscribed on the side of the barn, become reduced to a single principle reading "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Napoleon entertains a human farmer named Mr. Pilkington at a dinner and declares his intent to ally himself with the human farmers against the laboring classes of both the human and animal communities. He also changes the name of Animal Farm back to the Manor Farm, claiming that this title is the "correct" one. Looking in at the party of elites through the farmhouse window, the common animals can no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the human beings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Old Major, a prize-winning boar, gathers the animals of the Manor Farm for a meeting in the big barn. He tells them of a dream he has had in which all animals live together with no human beings to oppress or control them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animal Farm: Full Book Quiz | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Test your knowledge on all of Animal Farm. Perfect prep for Animal Farm quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Animal Farm: Character List | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A list of all the characters in Animal Farm. Animal Farm characters include: Napoleon, Snowball, Boxer, Squealer, Old Major, Mr. Pilkington, Benjamin, Clover, Mollie, Moses, Mr. Frederick, Mr. Jones, The Dogs, The Hens, The Sheep.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, a British political novelist and essayist whose pointed criticisms of political oppression propelled him into prominence toward the middle of the twentieth century. Born in 1903 to British colonists in Bengal, India, Orwell received his education at a series of private schools, including Eton, an elite school in England. His painful experiences with snobbishness and social elitism at Eton, as well as his intimate familiarity with the reality of British imperialism in India, made him deeply suspicious of the entrenched class system in English society. As a young man, Orwell became a socialist, speaking openly against the excesses of governments east and west and fighting briefly for the socialist cause during the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.

Unlike many British socialists in the 1930s and 1940s, Orwell was not enamored of the Soviet Union and its policies, nor did he consider the Soviet Union a positive representation of the possibilities of socialist society. He could not turn a blind eye to the cruelties and hypocrisies of Soviet Communist Party, which had overturned the semifeudal system of the tsars only to replace it with the dictatorial reign of Joseph Stalin. Orwell became a sharp critic of both capitalism and communism, and is remembered chiefly as an advocate of freedom and a committed opponent of communist oppression. His two greatest anti-totalitarian novels- Animal Farm and 1984-form the basis of his reputation. Orwell died in 1950, only a year after completing 1984, which many consider his masterpiece.

A dystopian novel, 1984 attacks the idea of totalitarian communism (a political system in which one ruling party plans and controls the collective social action of a state) by painting a terrifying picture of a world in which personal freedom is nonexistent. Animal Farm, written in 1945, deals with similar themes but in a shorter and somewhat simpler format. A "fairy story" in the style of Aesop's fables, it uses animals on an English farm to tell the history of Soviet communism. Certain animals are based directly on Communist Party leaders: the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, for example, are figurations of Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, respectively. Orwell uses the form of the fable for a number of aesthetic and political reasons. To better understand these, it is helpful to know at least the rudiments of Soviet history under Communist Party rule, beginning with the October Revolution of 1917.

In February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II, the monarch of Russia, abdicated and the socialist Alexander Kerensky became premier. At the end of October (November 7 on current calendars), Kerensky was ousted, and Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution, became chief commissar. Almost immediately, as wars raged on virtually every Russian front, Lenin's chief allies began jockeying for power in the newly formed state; the most influential included Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev. Trotsky and Stalin emerged as the most likely heirs to Lenin's vast power. Trotsky was a popular and charismatic leader, famous for his impassioned speeches, while the taciturn Stalin preferred to consolidate his power behind the scenes. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin orchestrated an alliance against Trotsky that included himself, Zinoviev, and Kaminev. In the following years, Stalin succeeded in becoming the unquestioned dictator of the Soviet Union and had Trotsky expelled first from Moscow, then from the Communist Party, and finally from Russia altogether in 1936. Trotsky fled to Mexico, where he was assassinated on Stalin's orders in 1940.

In 1934, Stalin's ally Serge Kirov was assassinated in Leningrad, prompting Stalin to commence his infamous purges of the Communist Party. Holding "show trials"-trials whose outcomes he and his allies had already decided-Stalin had his opponents officially denounced as participants in Trotskyist or anti-Stalinist conspiracies and therefore as "enemies of the people," an appellation that guaranteed their immediate execution. As the Soviet government's economic planning faltered and failed, Russia suffered under a surge of violence, fear, and starvation. Stalin used his former opponent as a tool to placate the wretched populace. Trotsky became a common national enemy and thus a source of negative unity. He was a frightening specter used to conjure horrifying eventualities, in comparison with which the current misery paled. Additionally, by associating his enemies with Trotsky's name, Stalin could ensure their immediate and automatic elimination from the Communist Party.

These and many other developments in Soviet history before 1945 have direct parallels in Animal Farm: Napoleon ousts Snowball from the farm and, after the windmill collapses, uses Snowball in his purges just as Stalin used Trotsky. Similarly, Napoleon becomes a dictator, while Snowball is never heard from again. Orwell was inspired to write Animal Farm in part by his experiences in a Trotskyist group during the Spanish Civil War, and Snowball certainly receives a more sympathetic portrayal than Napoleon. But though Animal Farm was written as an attack on a specific government, its general themes of oppression, suffering, and injustice have far broader application; modern readers have come to see Orwell's book as a powerful attack on any political, rhetorical, or military power that seeks to control human beings unjustly.

Historical Context

Russian society in the early twentieth century was bipolar: a tiny minority controlled most of the country's wealth, while the vast majority of the country's inhabitants were impoverished and oppressed peasants. Communism arose in Russia when the nation's workers and peasants, assisted by a class of concerned intellectuals known as the intelligentsia, rebelled against and overwhelmed the wealthy and powerful class of capitalists and aristocrats. They hoped to establish a socialist utopia based on the principles of the German economic and political philosopher Karl Marx.

In Das Kapital (Capital), Marx advanced an economically deterministic interpretation of human history, arguing that society would naturally evolve-from a monarchy and aristocracy, to capitalism, and then on to communism, a system under which all property would be held in common. The dignity of the poor workers oppressed by capitalism would be restored, and all people would live as equals. Marx followed this sober and scholarly work with The Communist Manifesto, an impassioned call to action that urged, "Workers of the world, unite!"

In the Russia of 1917, it appeared that Marx's dreams were to become reality. After a politically complicated civil war, Tsar Nicholas II, the monarch of Russia, was forced to abdicate the throne that his family had held for three centuries. Vladimir Ilych Lenin, a Russian intellectual revolutionary, seized power in the name of the Communist Party. The new regime took land and industry from private control and put them under government supervision. This centralization of economic systems constituted the first steps in restoring Russia to the prosperity it had known before World War I and in modernizing the nation's primitive infrastructure, including bringing electricity to the countryside. After Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky jockeyed for control of the newly formed Soviet Union. Stalin, a crafty and manipulative politician, soon banished Trotsky, an idealistic proponent of international communism. Stalin then began to consolidate his power with brutal intensity, killing or imprisoning his perceived political enemies and overseeing the purge of approximately twenty million Soviet citizens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, a British political novelist and essayist whose pointed criticisms of political oppression propelled him into prominence toward the middle of the twentieth century. Born in 1903 to British colonists in Bengal, India, Orwell received his education at a series of private schools, including Eton, an elite school in England.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mr. Dursley, a well-off Englishman, notices strange happenings on his way to work one day. That night, Albus Dumbledore, the head of a wizardry academy called Hogwarts, meets Professor McGonagall, who also teaches at Hogwarts, and a giant named Hagrid outside the Dursley home. Dumbledore tells McGonagall that someone named Voldemort has killed a Mr. and Mrs. Potter and tried unsuccessfully to kill their baby son, Harry. Dumbledore leaves Harry with an explanatory note in a basket in front of the Dursley home.

Ten years later, the Dursley household is dominated by the Dursleys' son, Dudley, who torments and bullies Harry. Dudley is spoiled, while Harry is forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. At the zoo on Dudley's birthday, the glass in front of a boa constrictor exhibit disappears, frightening everyone. Harry is later punished for this incident.

Mysterious letters begin arriving for Harry. They worry Mr. Dursley, who tries to keep them from Harry, but the letters keep arriving through every crack in the house. Finally, he flees with his family to a secluded island shack on the eve of Harry's eleventh birthday. At midnight, they hear a large bang on the door and Hagrid enters. Hagrid hands Harry an admissions letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that the Dursleys have tried to deny Harry's wizardry all these years.

The next day, Hagrid takes Harry to London to shop for school supplies. First they go to the wizard bank, Gringotts, where Harry learns that his parents have left him a hefty supply of money. They shop on the wizards' commercial street known as Diagon Alley, where Harry is fitted for his school uniform. Harry buys books, ingredients for potions, and, finally, a magic wand-the companion wand to the evil Voldemort's.

A month later, Harry goes to the train station and catches his train to Hogwarts on track nine and three quarters. On the train, Harry befriends other first-year students like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, a Muggle girl chosen to attend Hogwarts. At school, the first-years take turns putting on the "Sorting Hat" to find out in which residential house they will live. Harry fears being assigned to the sinister Slytherin house, but he, Ron, and Hermione end up in the noble Gryffindor house.

As the school year gets underway, Harry discovers that his Potions professor, Snape, does not like him. Hagrid reassures Harry that Snape has no reason to dislike him. During their first flying lesson on broomsticks, the students are told to stay grounded while the teacher takes an injured boy named Neville to the hospital. Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin bully, snatches Neville's prized toy and flies off with it to the top of a tree. Harry flies after him. Malfoy throws the ball in the air, and Harry speeds downward, making a spectacular catch. Professor McGonagall witnesses this incident. Instead of punishing Harry, she recommends that he play Quidditch, a much-loved game that resembles soccer played on broomsticks, for Gryffindor. Later that day, Malfoy challenges Harry to a wizard's duel at midnight. Malfoy doesn't show up at the appointed place, and Harry almost gets in trouble. While trying to hide, he accidentally discovers a fierce three-headed dog guarding a trapdoor in the forbidden third-floor corridor.

On Halloween, a troll is found in the building. The students are all escorted back to their dormitories, but Harry and Ron sneak off to find Hermione, who is alone and unaware of the troll. Unwittingly, they lock the troll in the girls' bathroom along with Hermione. Together, they defeat the troll. Hermione tells a lie to protect Harry and Ron from being punished. During Harry's first Quidditch match, his broom jerks out of control. Hermione notices Snape staring at Harry and muttering a curse. She concludes that he is jinxing Harry's broom, and she sets Snape's clothes on fire. Harry regains control of the broom and makes a spectacular play to win the Quidditch match.

For Christmas, Harry receives his father's invisibility cloak, and he explores the school, unseen, late at night. He discovers the Mirror of Erised, which displays the deepest desire of whoever looks in it. Harry looks in it and sees his parents alive. After Christmas, Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to unravel the mysterious connection between a break-in at Gringotts and the three-headed guard dog. They learn that the dog is guarding the Sorcerer's Stone, which is capable of providing eternal life and unlimited wealth to its owner and belongs to Nicolas Flamel, Dumbledore's old partner.

A few weeks later, Hagrid wins a dragon egg in a poker game. Because it is illegal to own dragons, Harry, Ron, and Hermione contact Ron's older brother, who studies dragons. They arrange to get rid of the dragon but get caught. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are severely punished, and Gryffindor is docked 150 points. Furthermore, part of their punishment is to go into the enchanted forest with Hagrid to find out who has been killing unicorns recently. In the forest, Harry comes upon a hooded man drinking unicorn blood. The man tries to attack Harry, but Harry is rescued by a friendly centaur who tells him that his assailant was Voldemort. Harry also learns that it is Voldemort who has been trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone.

Harry decides that he must find the stone before Voldemort does. He, Ron, and Hermione sneak off that night to the forbidden third-floor corridor. They get past the guard dog and perform many impressive feats as they get closer and closer to the stone. Harry ultimately finds himself face to face with Quirrell, who announces that Harry must die. Knowing that Harry desires to find the stone, Quirrell puts Harry in front of the Mirror of Erised and makes him state what he sees. Harry sees himself with the stone in his pocket, and at that same moment he actually feels it in his pocket. But he tells Quirrell that he sees something else. A voice tells Quirrell that the boy is lying and requests to speak to Harry face to face. Quirrell removes his turban and reveals Voldemort's face on the back of his head. Voldemort, who is inhabiting Quirrell's body, instructs Quirrell to kill Harry, but Quirrell is burned by contact with the boy. A struggle ensues and Harry passes out.

When Harry regains consciousness, he is in the hospital with Dumbledore. Dumbledore explains that he saved Harry from Quirrell just in time. He adds that he and Flamel have decided to destroy the stone. Harry heads down to the end-of-year banquet, where Slytherin is celebrating its seventh consecutive win of the house championship cup. Dumbledore gets up and awards many last-minute points to Gryffindor for the feats of Harry and his friends, winning the house cup for Gryffindor. Harry returns to London to spend the summer with the Dursleys.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
harry potter and the sorcerer's stone free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
teaching harry potter and the sorcerer's stone

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Full Book Summary | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A short summary of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Test your knowledge on all of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Perfect prep for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone characters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A list of all the characters in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Characters include:Harry Potter,Hermione Granger,Ron Weasley,Hagrid,Albus Dumbledore and more

# data[].attributes.headline
Philosopher's Stone - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.subject
Philosopher's Stone - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone emerged from the creative mind of J. K. (Joanna Kathleen) Rowling on a train ride from Manchester to London in 1990. Rowling was a single mother of an infant daughter and living on welfare in Edinburgh, Scotland, when she began the novel. Putting pen to paper in a café while her baby, Jessica, napped, Rowling soon skyrocketed to fame and fortune. While she received an advance of only £2,500 (approximately $3,500 American) for the novel from her British publisher, Bloomsbury, she has since become one of the richest women in the United Kingdom. Her first book was published under the original title Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the book's American publishers feared that mention of philosophers would scare away young readers and changed the title to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). The book garnered rave reviews in the United Kingdom, where it won the British Book Award's Children's Book of the Year prize, as well as the Smarties Book Prize. Critics have compared her to classic children's writers such as Roald Dahl, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, who also fused the traditional adventure story with fantastic elements drawn from myth and legend.

Soon after the British release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Arthur Levine, an editorial director for Scholastic Books, bought the American rights to the novel for the impressive sum of $105,000. This money allowed Rowling to retire from a teaching job and devote herself entirely to writing. When it was released in America, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone almost immediately became a publishing sensation, holding the top spot on the New York Times Best-Seller List for several months. The book was unique in attracting both young and adult readers; indeed, the British publisher issued an edition with a less colorful cover for grown-ups to read on trains without having to hide the novel behind a newspaper. Spurred by the success of her first book, Rowling produced a number of sequels, which have won the Smarties Book Prize so often (in three consecutive years) that Rowling has requested that her books no longer be considered candidates for the prize. To date, the Harry Potter empire includes four books in the Potter series, a couple of related works written by Rowling for charity ( Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them), and a major motion picture produced by Warner Brothers.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone draws on a long tradition of English fantasy works that seem to be for children but are in fact deep allegories of the human condition. Rowling herself has stated that her book is really about imagination and that practicing wizardry is only a metaphor for developing one's full potential. On one level, the story is a thriller with a criminal plot (the planned theft of the Sorcerer's Stone) that is thwarted by a group of brave students, just as C. S. Lewis's Narnia books-childhood favorites of Rowling's-are about children who explore a strange land and perform heroic deeds. But on a deeper level, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, like the Narnia books, illustrates the challenges and adventures of growing up. Rowling's book outlines every child's ordeal of becoming an individual, winning respect from peers, learning about loyalty, discovering the difference between forgivable vices and unforgivable sins, and believing in something bigger than oneself. Harry's transformation from a forgotten orphan living under the stairs into a publicly recognized individual (symbolized by the magical, adultlike letters addressed to him), and then finally into a renowned hero represents the successful entry into the public world wished for by every child. Harry's escape from misery to a new place where he has friends, respect, and a useful role in the world is a projection of every child's ideal life. Most important, Harry's discovery that there is something uniquely valuable inside him represents the dream of innumerable people-children and adults alike-who enjoy indulging their imaginations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
j. k. rowling harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Background | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone emerged from the creative mind of J. K. (Joanna Kathleen) Rowling on a train ride from Manchester to London in 1990. Rowling was a single mother of an infant daughter and living on welfare in Edinburgh, Scotland, when she began the novel.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A mean-spirited, miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his counting-house on a frigid Christmas Eve. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, shivers in the anteroom because Scrooge refuses to spend money on heating coals for a fire. Scrooge's nephew, Fred, pays his uncle a visit and invites him to his annual Christmas party. Two portly gentlemen also drop by and ask Scrooge for a contribution to their charity. Scrooge reacts to the holiday visitors with bitterness and venom, spitting out an angry "Bah! Humbug!" in response to his nephew's "Merry Christmas!"

Later that evening, after returning to his dark, cold apartment, Scrooge receives a chilling visitation from the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Marley, looking haggard and pallid, relates his unfortunate story. As punishment for his greedy and self-serving life his spirit has been condemned to wander the Earth weighted down with heavy chains. Marley hopes to save Scrooge from sharing the same fate. Marley informs Scrooge that three spirits will visit him during each of the next three nights. After the wraith disappears, Scrooge collapses into a deep sleep.

He wakes moments before the arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Past, a strange childlike phantom with a brightly glowing head. The spirit escorts Scrooge on a journey into the past to previous Christmases from the curmudgeon's earlier years. Invisible to those he watches, Scrooge revisits his childhood school days, his apprenticeship with a jolly merchant named Fezziwig, and his engagement to Belle, a woman who leaves Scrooge because his lust for money eclipses his ability to love another. Scrooge, deeply moved, sheds tears of regret before the phantom returns him to his bed.

The Ghost of Christmas Present, a majestic giant clad in a green fur robe, takes Scrooge through London to unveil Christmas as it will happen that year. Scrooge watches the large, bustling Cratchit family prepare a miniature feast in its meager home. He discovers Bob Cratchit's crippled son, Tiny Tim, a courageous boy whose kindness and humility warms Scrooge's heart. The specter then zips Scrooge to his nephew's to witness the Christmas party. Scrooge finds the jovial gathering delightful and pleads with the spirit to stay until the very end of the festivities. As the day passes, the spirit ages, becoming noticeably older. Toward the end of the day, he shows Scrooge two starved children, Ignorance and Want, living under his coat. He vanishes instantly as Scrooge notices a dark, hooded figure coming toward him.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come leads Scrooge through a sequence of mysterious scenes relating to an unnamed man's recent death. Scrooge sees businessmen discussing the dead man's riches, some vagabonds trading his personal effects for cash, and a poor couple expressing relief at the death of their unforgiving creditor. Scrooge, anxious to learn the lesson of his latest visitor, begs to know the name of the dead man. After pleading with the ghost, Scrooge finds himself in a churchyard, the spirit pointing to a grave. Scrooge looks at the headstone and is shocked to read his own name. He desperately implores the spirit to alter his fate, promising to renounce his insensitive, avaricious ways and to honor Christmas with all his heart. Whoosh! He suddenly finds himself safely tucked in his bed.

Overwhelmed with joy by the chance to redeem himself and grateful that he has been returned to Christmas Day, Scrooge rushes out onto the street hoping to share his newfound Christmas spirit. He sends a giant Christmas turkey to the Cratchit house and attends Fred's party, to the stifled surprise of the other guests. As the years go by, he holds true to his promise and honors Christmas with all his heart: he treats Tiny Tim as if he were his own child, provides lavish gifts for the poor, and treats his fellow human beings with kindness, generosity, and warmth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A mean-spirited, miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his counting-house on a frigid Christmas Eve. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, shivers in the anteroom because Scrooge refuses to spend money on heating coals for a fire. Scrooge's nephew, Fred, pays his uncle a visit and invites him to his annual Christmas party.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Christmas Carol quiz that tests what you know. Perfect prep for A Christmas Carol quizzes and tests you might have in school.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Christmas Carol - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.subject
A Christmas Carol - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first nine years of his life living in the coastal regions of Kent, a county in southeast England. Dickens' father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was financially irresponsible, piling up tremendous debts throughout his life. When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London. At twelve, his father was arrested and sent to debtors' prison. Dickens' mother moved seven of their children into prison with their father but arranged for Cha rles to live alone outside the prison, working with other child laborers at a hellish job pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse.

The three months Charles spent apart from his family were severely traumatic. He viewed his job as a miserable trap-he considered himself too good for it, stirring the contempt of his worker-companions. After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a law clerk. He went on to serve as a court reporter before taking his place as one of the most popular English novelists of his time. At age 25, Dickens completed his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which met with great success. This started his career as an English literary celebrity, during which he produced such masterpieces as Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens died in Kent on June 9, 1870, at the age of fifty-eight.

Background on A Christmas Carol

Dickens's beloved novella A Christmas Carol was written in 1843, with the intention of drawing readers' attention to the plight of England's poor. (Social criticism, a recurring theme in Dickens's work, resounds most strongly in his novel ) In the tale, Dickens stealthily combines a somewhat indirect description of hardships faced by the poor with a heart-rending, sentimental celebration of the Christmas season. The calloused character of the apathetic penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge, who opens his heart after being confronted by three spirits, remains one of Dickens's most widely recognized and popular creations.

A Christmas Carol takes the form of a relatively simplistic allegory-it is seldom considered one of Dickens's important literary contributions. The novella's emotional depth, brilliant narration, and endearing characters, however, offer plenty of rewards for literature students, Dickensian fans, and Grinches alike. Like A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol has won much appreciation among general readers despite being dismissed by scholarly critics of Dickens's work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
a christmas carol free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol Background | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Important information about Charles Dickens's background, historical events that influenced A Christmas Carol, and the main ideas within the work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SparkNotes: A Christmas Carol: Characters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A list of all the characters in A Christmas Carol. The A Christmas Carol characters covered include: Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit , Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, The Ghost of Christmas Past , The Ghost of Christmas Present , The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come , Fred, Fezziwig, Belle, Peter Cratchit, Martha Cratchit, Fan, The Portly Gentlemen , Mrs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the great gatsby free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Gatsby: Full Book Summary | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A short summary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of The Great Gatsby.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Great Gatsby - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.subject
The Great Gatsby - Context Author and Novel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.

Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.

Many of these events from Fitzgerald's early life appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick's case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South.

Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy's love.

As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.

Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed "the Jazz Age." Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation.

Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude police notice, and "speakeasies"-secret clubs that sold liquor-thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The staid conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were turned on their ear, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.

Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, and, like Gatsby, he had always idolized the very rich. Now he found himself in an era in which unrestrained materialism set the tone of society, particularly in the large cities of the East. Even so, like Nick, Fitzgerald saw through the glitter of the Jazz Age to the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath, and part of him longed for this absent moral center.

In many ways,The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald's attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the great gatsby free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby Background | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nick Carraway

The novel's narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan's cousin, he facilitates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick's eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.

Read an in-depth analysis of Nick Carraway.

Jay Gatsby

The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him "great" nonetheless.

Read an in-depth analysis of Jay Gatsby.

Daisy Buchanan

Nick's cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband's constant infidelity.

Read an in-depth analysis of Daisy Buchanan.

Tom Buchanan

Daisy's immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick's social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation.

Read an in-depth analysis of Tom Buchanan.

Jordan Baker

Daisy's friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the "new women" of the 1920s-cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth.

Read an in-depth analysis of Jordan Baker.

Myrtle Wilson

Tom's lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire.

Read an in-depth analysis of Myrtle Wilson.

George Wilson

Myrtle's husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.

Owl Eyes

The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby's mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby's library, astonished that the books are real.

Klipspringer

The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby's mansion, taking advantage of his host's money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears-he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby's mansion.

Meyer Wolfsheim

Gatsby's friend, a prominent figure in organized crime. Before the events of the novel take place, Wolfsheim helped Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. His continued acquaintance with Gatsby suggests that Gatsby is still involved in illegal business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the great gatsby free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Great Gatsby: Character List | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The novel's narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
alice's adventures in wonderland free online study guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
teaching alice's adventures in wonderland

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Study Guide | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Sparklet Chapter Summaries | SparkNotes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From a general summary to chapter summaries to explanations of famous quotes, the SparkNotes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Study Guide has everything you need to ace quizzes, tests, and essays.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tom Ripley lives in a shabby brownstone in New York City and works as a casual extortionist when he meets Herbert Greenleaf. Herbert, the father of Tom's onetime acquaintance Dickie Greenleaf, is desperate for Dickie to return from Europe, where he's living as a painter in a small Italian village called Mongibello. Herbert offers to pay Tom's way if Tom will travel to Europe and convince Dickie to come home. Tom, who grew up poor and who remains envious of the lifestyles of the wealthy people he meets in New York, accepts the offer and boards a boat bound for Europe.

In Italy, Tom orchestrates a casual run-in with Dickie. Dickie and Marge Sherwood are the only two Americans in Mongibello, and Tom, though sensing a strained sexual tension between the two of them, attempts to embed himself into their world. At first, Dickie is cold and standoffish. However, Tom confesses to Dickie that he's been sent by Herbert, and Dickie, amused by Herbert's desperation, accepts Tom as a friend. Together, the two travel around Italy, and become incredibly close. Tom moves into Dickie's home, and Dickie lends Tom his clothes and even calls him "Mr. Greenleaf" jokingly. Marge, upset and perturbed by the two men's sudden closeness, confronts Dickie, and Dickie's coolness toward Tom returns. Tom, realizing that his luxurious and carefree existence in Italy may be coming to an end, decides to murder Dickie and assume his identity. As a gifted forger and impersonator, Tom believes that the feat will be a simple one. On a trip to San Remo, Tom and Dickie take a boat out into the bay and, while they are at sea, Tom kills Dickie by striking him with an oar and sinking his body. After sinking the boat, Tom returns to shore and begins to cover up his crime and take the steps needed to become Dickie Greenleaf.

Tom absconds to Rome, where he slightly changes his appearance, rents an apartment under Dickie's name, and spends Dickie's money. He wears Dickie's clothes and expensive rings, and luxuriates in his decadent new life. He writes letters to Marge, explaining that he has had to move away and cannot see her in order to figure out his feelings toward her, and to Dickie's parents, explaining his decision to remain in Italy after all. When another American, Freddie Miles, obtains "Dickie's" address and arrives for a visit, Tom answers the door as himself and narrowly avoids being found out, though Freddie is suspicious-after all, Tom is dressed in Dickie's clothes and is wearing Dickie's jewelry. Tom puts Freddie off, assuring him that Dickie is just downstairs at a nearby café, but, on his way out, Freddie encounters "Dickie's" landlady, who insists that "Signor Greenleaf" is the only resident of the apartment and is, in fact, right upstairs. When Freddie returns to investigate, Tom murders him as well, and, after staging a scene of drunken revelry, drives Freddie's body out to a cemetery and abandons it behind a headstone.

When the police discover Freddie's body, they question "Dickie," believing unquestioningly that he his who he says he is. Tom is relieved, but soon encounters a newspaper headline which describes the discovery of a bloodstained boat in the San Remo bay. Realizing that if a body is found in the water as well it will be assumed to be that of Tom Ripley-since Tom has been living as Dickie and has left no trail of his "own" whereabouts-and "Dickie Greenleaf" will be a suspect in not just one but two murders-that of Freddie Miles, and that of Tom Ripley. Marge arrives in town, and Tom speaks to her over the phone as himself, assuring her that everything is all right, before leaving for Sicily as Dickie in order to abandon the trail of Dickie's identity there and return to Italy as Tom Ripley. After several days of "behaving" once again as Tom Ripley, he sends two suitcases of Dickie's belongings ahead to Venice, in case he wants to claim them sometime in the future, and returns to Rome as himself. When he does, the newspapers describe the search for a "missing" Dickie Greenleaf. A search ensues, and garners more and more attention in the Italian press. Tom moves to Venice, where he attends parties and fields questions as to Dickie's whereabouts. Soon, Marge arrives in town, and, after spotting Dickie's rings in Tom's apartment, comes to the conclusion that Dickie must have committed suicide-he would never, she insists, be without his rings. Herbert arrives in Italy as well, with an American investigator, but "Dickie's" trail has gone cold. Tom, in one brazen, final act of deceit, composes a letter from "Dickie" which bequeaths his entire estate unto Tom. Though nervous to go through with such a huge endeavor, Tom forwards the letter to Herbert, then embarks on a journey to Greece. However, after the discovery of Dickie's trunks at the American Express in Venice, Tom fears that he will be found out when the authorities obtain his fingerprints. Upon docking in Greece, Tom notices policemen on the shore, and is sure that his streak of luck and deceit has run out. However, the police do not stop him when he disembarks the ship. Confused, Tom heads to the American Express to collect his mail-a letter from Herbert has arrived, acquiescing to "Dickie's" wishes that Tom be the sole inheritor of his estate and confirming that the funds will be transferred to Tom shortly. Relieved, Tom hails a cab, and instructs the driver to take him to the finest hotel in town.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Get all the key plot points of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley on one page. From the creators of SparkNotes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tom Ripley

Tom Ripley, who is simultaneously the novel's protagonist and antagonist, has a gift for forgery, impersonation, and imitation, and he uses these skills to his advantage at every available opportunity. Slick and slippery, Tom mirrors... read analysis of Tom Ripley

Richard "Dickie" Greenleaf

Dickie Greenleaf, an acquaintance of Tom Ripley's, is the cool, vain heir to a shipbuilding company who has absconded to Italy in order to live a life of luxury far from the watchful gaze... read analysis of Richard "Dickie" Greenleaf

Marjorie "Marge" Sherwood

An expat, writer, and resident of Mongibello, Marge Sherwood is Dickie's on-and-off romantic interest and Tom's major rival for Dickie's affections. Marge is creative and kind, but hopelessly lovesick for Dickie, and she often allows... read analysis of Marjorie "Marge" Sherwood

Frederick "Freddie" Miles

One of Dickie's expat acquaintances, Freddie is an "overweight American [with] carrot-red hair" who is "the son of an American hotel-chain owner" and a "self-styled playwright." Freddie's extravagant manner and off-putting looks make him hateful... read analysis of Frederick "Freddie" Miles

Herbert Greenleaf

Dickie's father, and the owner of a shipbuilding company specializing in "small sailing boats." Herbert pays Tom's way as he travels to Italy, hoping that Tom will convince Dickie to return home to helm the... read analysis of Herbert Greenleaf

Aunt Dottie

Tom's much-loathed Aunt Dottie raised him in Boston after his parents' death, though she constantly complained about it. She teased and taunted Tom cruelly, and often called him a "sissy," comparing him to his father... read analysis of Aunt Dottie

Cleo Dobelle

One of Tom's friends in New York, a painter of miniatures who lives in her parents' large home on the Upper East Side. Though Tom and Cleo are close and have "taken to each other... read analysis of Cleo Dobelle

Dickie's mother, whom Tom describes as "formal yet with [a] naïve goodwill-toward-all." Emily has fallen ill with leukemia, and for that reason she and her husband are desperate to bring Dickie home to share in her final months.

Fausto is Dickie and Tom's Italian tutor. He is a vivacious young Italian man and a "card-carrying Communist" who is native to Milan but a frequent visitor to Mongibello.

Marcellus "Marc" Priminger

Tom's former housemate, a wealthy man who has a "hobby" of bringing young men in need of financial assistance into his home and putting them up.

Tom's roommate in New York at the novel's beginning. Not quite a friend, Bob doesn't know much detail of Tom's life.

Dickie's maid and cook in Mongibello.

A lieutenant with the Roman police who questions Tom as to Dickie's whereabouts in the wake of Freddie Miles's murder (at the hands of Tom-as-Dickie.)

The landlady who rents Tom-as-Dickie his apartment in Rome.

An American detective whom Herbert Greenleaf brings over to Italy in order to conduct an investigation of Dickie's disappearance.

Contessa Roberta "Titi" della Latta-Cacciaguerra

A countess and an acquaintance of Tom's in Venice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Need help on characters in Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley? Check out our detailed character descriptions. From the creators of SparkNotes.