... character Victorians prized respectability, earnestness, a sense of duty and public service; most would have regarded an industrious, pious conventionality as the best road not only to material recompense but to heavenly rewards as well. Yet the fabled self-confidence of this overachieving society often rings hollow. Their literature conveys an uneasy sense that their obsession with work was in ... unostentatious, and strictly private manner". OUR MUTUAL FRIEND (1865), the second last novel Dickens wrote, started with a murder mystery. In the opening chapter a drowned man is found floati...

• Word Count: 6746
• Approx Pages: 27

... , coming to saw down the trees that will eventually make the guillotine. Death becomes a farmer, carrying his own wares on the tumbrils that carried the aristocrats to the guillotine. Yet no one notices them. Both these themes, along with the importance of connections over time, will all come to dominate the book. Book 1, Chapter 2: "The Mail" Summary: On a misty Friday night in November, a mail-coach lumbers up a hill on the road to Dover. Three ... passengers trudge in the mud behind it, with one passenger flinching ... ...

• Word Count: 2565
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... sympathises with. Hardy may also have views about rejection. This is shown where Gertrude sees Rhoda and Mr Lodge's son walking along the road and asks Mr Lodge who he is. Mr Lodge just says the boy is "one of the neighbourhood," and goes onto say that he thinks the boy "lives with his mother a mile or two off". He does not even communicate with ... has passed. This is shown at the beginning of chapter 6 as it reads, "Half a dozen years passed away - This allows Hardy to create a more elaborate story line and use several characters. Whereas, 'The Signalman' ranges over a period of only ...

• Word Count: 2219
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School