.... instability. The Utopian state cannot afford any kind of instability and therefore cannot afford love. The destruction of the family is one example of the effect of Utopia's absence of love. In a world of bottled-births, not only is there no need for a family, but the idea is actually considered obscene. The terms "mother" and "father" are extremely offensive and are rarely used except in science. Huxley uses Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, to portray the vulgarity when he explains the obscenity of life before Utopia to a group of students: And home was as squalid psychically as physically. Psychically, it was a rabbit hole, a midden, hot with .....

.... California, is a difference that doesn’t exactly take a scientist to see. From the beginning of the novel, you hear Suyuan Woo tell the story of "The Joy Luck Club," a group started by some Chinese women during World War II, where "we feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy." (p. 12) Really, this was their only joy. The mothers grew up during perilous times in China. They all were taught "to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, to eat [their] own bitterness." (p. 241) Though not many of them grew up terribly poor, they all had a cert .....

.... of her parents and her community, and changed for the betterment of herself. She became who she wanted to be. Gwyn made these choices internally, listening to her heart and mind. However, Gwyn actually makes two different turns in the novel. In the end, she comes out of her mystical world and back into reality. On the other hand, Tad, reacting from the external influence of his family and the Inn, changed to form the mold of the responsible son of that time period. Though taking opposite approaches, the changes of Gwyn and Tad were very significant to their growth as characters and ultimately, to their place in the world. Gwyn started out in the novel .....

.... and him, John, who is a concert pianist. John is clever but physcotic, because his hobby, as gruesome as it may seem, is killing. It began one day when his nanny was killed. It seemed she was killed by a hit and run driver. John, who loved his nanny so much, decided to get revenge, and revenge he did. He killed the man who had been driving the car. The book starts out, as said, with a killing and then by revealing the killer. Then the book goes into a story of the life of the man Mikali. His mother and father had been killed at sea, and the only people he had left were his nanny and his aunt. The book gives an accurate description of his life and times .....

.... wife Susan, and their daughter Elizabeth-Jane had decided to eat. While waiting, the furmity woman made the gesture and offered Henchard a bit of alcohol to be put in his food. As Henchard ate more and more, he wanted more and more of the alcohol. This alcohol caused him to become drunk. While in his drunken state, Henchard became roused when he was in an argument and said he would sell his wife to the highest bidder and did just that. The second time Henchard and the furmity woman came into contact was quite a long time later when Henchard was leading a renewed life and was doing well. This time the furmity woman made her presence felt was in court one .....

.... Sommers as an innocent little lady who believes in "family first". This is apparent when Mrs. Sommers "walks about in a dreamy state" contemplating what to buy and ends up with a huge plan to make her little brood look "fresh and dainty". To those around her, Mrs. Sommers is this innocent family lady. However, the minute she buys the silk stockings is the minute she becomes a different Mrs. Sommers. All of a sudden everything she has in not good enough, she looks at her shopping bag as "shabby" and "old". Her parcel is "very small". At this point, she wants more. She begins to think without reason, and loses her sense of responsibility when she puts the .....

.... named Paul Whitmore who had held her hostage in the past, allows the reader identify with Alix’s innocence. A good-hearted, well-minded person, Alix Bowen feels compelled to discover how a man of Whitmore’s intelligence could possibly commit the horrible crimes that he did. Drabble also forces the reader to sympathize with Alix Bowen, and to understand her obsession. In showing her unconditional dedication to Whitmore, Alix sets off to locate the father of the murderer. The reason this infatuation continues relies solely on the fact that Whitmore offers Alix an “intellectual and psychological stimulus of an unusually invigorating nature.” The chain eff .....

.... main job is to watch the signal fire. The littluns: The littluns are basically the younger boys and ride the bandwagon. The two boys Ralph and Piggy meet each other in a thick jungle and discover that they crashed in an airplane and are stranded. They also learn that there are no adults present on the island and that none of the adults survived the crash. As they approach a beach, they find an enormous conch shell. Piggy gives the conch a little toot and summons the rest of the boys on the island to the beach. The boys assemble and elect Ralph as the leader. Ralph then assigns the Choir, led by Jack, to be the hunters. Then Jack, Ralph, and Simon set out t .....