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Argument: In writing Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte was divinely inspired by her surroundings, enabling her to create eerily realistic characters and a dreary, yet true setting. Claim: The moors in Wuthering Heights are based on the moors that stretch around her home. She knew her surroundings well. Joseph is based on hill-farmers that lived in the moors around her home. Emily Bronte was a very down-to-earth person. Evidence: "She was a very private person, rejecting such contacts with the world as were offered her through her sister Charlotte and her London publishers." "The author's close familiarity with the local rustic types, the fiercely independent hill-farmers living about the moors, enabled her to create the old curmudgeon Joseph." "In creating such a character as Joseph, Emily Brontë showed that, undoubted visionary as she was, she also had her feet firmly planted on earth." "All the source of her health and happiness, and the inspiration of her writing, were the moors that stretch 20 miles round about her home, Haworth, where she spent her whole life. Her intimate knowledge of the moors at all seasons of the year, and of the wildlife inhabiting them, gave her all the stimulus she needed to enrich her imagination and inspire her writing." http://go.galegroup.com.lib.chandleraz.gov/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1420001074&v=2.1&u=chandler_main&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Argument: Krakauer does superb research before writing his books, often digging into the past of the people or issues he writes about. This research manifests itself in his writing through an intricate understanding of the subject. Claim: In Under the Banner of Heaven, "proving his capacity for exhaustive research, Krakauer does an impressive job of chronicling the early history of the [Mormon] faith". This research can be seen in other books as well. Evidence: Krakauer chronicles how Joseph Smith went about "receiving a message from an angel named Moroni leading him to a hillside near his home in Palmyra, New York" and he "examines the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, wherein Saints disguised as Indians slaughtered 120 of 137 settlers who ventured onto Mormon turf". All this proves Krakauer's research capabilities. PURL: http://go.galegroup.com.lib.chandleraz.gov/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=chandler_main&tabID=T001&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=5&contentSet=GALE|H1100080168&&docId=GALE|H1100080168&docType=GALE&role=LitRC

Argument: * Russ Allbery breaks down Catch-22 as a great novel, but not without its flaws. What makes this review and criticism so imporant in research of Heller's novel are the (opinion-based) negative sides of the novel as a whole. Such negative connotations include the "monotonous" circle made by Heller in arguments (such as paradox made by not ordering combat missions chronologically when related to the novel's conclusion) and the fact that many would categorize the story with a main theme of humor - which Allbery denies is the core of Heller's work. Allbery goes on to summarize how the term "Catch-22" was integrated into the English language (via slang) and that Heller's work is truly a 'best-of' even if flaws persist. Evidence: * "Catch-22 didn't entirely succeed for me as a comedy. The huge ensemble cast was mostly too unbelievable and exaggerated for me to find funny" (Allbery) * "Due in part to the way that Heller stresses paradoxes and insoluable conflict, the writing can be quite repetitive and a bit circular." (Allbery) * "Heller provides as a clue the linearly increasing number of missions the airmen had to fly before theoretically being allowed to rotate home, but ordering can still be frustrating." (Allbery) * "The war acts in this book like a force of nature. Nearly everyone just accepts that it's happening and tries to ignore it, or revels in fighting it, without really thinking about it. It's only Yossarian, normally trying to maintain a long-suffering sarcasm, who occasionally can't help but tell the blunt truth." (Allbery) Thoughts: * While this is somewhat an opinionated "summary" of Catch-22, it is the only review I have that stresses some of the negative sides to the novel; from my view, the strengths of the novel further stand out amidst these criticisms. It is a strong point to make that Heller used too many "circle arguments" for it shows his position in writing the novel and how certain themes may have lead

Argument: The character's process of maturing creates the motivating force of the novel. Evidence: Each story has one narrator whom all have an idealized view of the world. All three stories mentioned play on the imagery of darkness. Own Thoughts: Galloway has indeed made an interesting observation from reading Conrad's works. She does a great job staying on topic along with tying the three novels together. Quotes: "These contrasting doubles all "pull" on the narrators; the narrators are either attracted by certain positive qualities or repelled by their double's lack of "moral restraint" or both." "All three stories deal with a process of maturing that involves the loss of youthful illusions, a process usually precipitated by an actual "trial" that challenges the protagonist's professional skills as well as his assumptions about his identity and sanity."

Joseph Heller is seen as a modernistic author, in the sense that he uses a chronological plot that is deliberately irrational. "It is only fitting that a novel which deals with an apparently absurd and confused world should be written in an apparently absurd and confused style." The characters in Catch 22 have a feeling that what is happening to them has happened in the past to others. Catch 22 according to the book follows the idea that "They have a right to anything we can't stop them from doing." There was only one catch: "[it] specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind." However, his second release "Something happened" is "described to [have] created a darkened, demonic, perhaps partly hallucinated fictive portrait of contemporary America." One of his most notable achievements is his ability to connect the reader to the protagonist, simultaneously heightening their own self awareness. Civil Disobedience by Thoreau may not directly connect to this ideology, but in general it touches bases with the idea that one should become aware of the right in society and when faced with "wrong" laws disobey in a civil manner.

Catch-22 in itself is a book about moral values and the inherent goodness of man despite the evil characters placed throughout, at least that's what the author here is trying to convince us of. He offers an almost sarcastic view of the dark themes prevalent throughout the novel. He argues that the evil intentions of character's are not sinister but more opportunistic. Almost as if just a normal man who, for the most part, will take advantage of an opportunity. The author also argues that Heller is attack things like religion, military, politics, corruption and other large topics of interest. The novel itself is about an opportunist who takes advantage of his situation, which could simply represent a number of different social issues during the time. The author himself thinks that Heller may be addressing all of them at once.