The Greatest Essays/Chapters/Monlogues you've ever read

[Adolescent09]

Hey everyone! Since having read George Orwell's gripping and indelibly thought provoking novel, 1984, I have been influenced by a few of the historically ground-breaking essays he discusses into beginning this thread, the subject of which the topic title makes clear. I would like people who wish to contribute to this discussion to post excerpts of remarkable pieces of literature which have globally impacted our intelligent perspectives and outlooks. I will post a few chapters and essays of the books here which have effected me through the course of completion. Later (I don't have the time right now, I'm in a rush) I will excerpt from them and describe exactly what intrigued me:

The Grand Inquisitor~The Brother's Karamzov
War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength~1984
Cassie and the next to final chapters~Uncle Tom's Cabin
The next to final chapters~Brave New World
The Government experiment of societal purity through subject, Alex~A Clockwork Orange

These are only a few globally acclaimed novels which are examples that support my topic idea. I hope you other lit-netters would like to add your 2 cents. Or just 1 cent. Pretty pleaseeee.. No cent? :(
Cheers everyone :D

[barbara0207]

As you mention 1984, I think we should not forget "The Grammar of Newspeak". Orwell describes in a simple, but very enlightening way how language can be used to manipulate people.

[PeterL]

Swift's Digression concerning Digressions is a true classic. There are parts of Foucault's Pendulum that are beter than any that you mentioned, especially where the misinterpretation was pointed out.

[bazarov]

The Great Inquisitor and discussion between Raskolnikov and Porfiriy Petrovich are first tings that crosses my mind.

[Mortis Anarchy]

The Vagina Monologues-Eve Ensler

[Orual]

Dr. Zhivago's monologue about consciousness and eternal life is one of my favorites.

[JBI]

Medea has some brilliant monologues.

[kandaurov]

Crime and Punishment's second chapter. I interrupted my reading to turn on the computer and write this post. A sorrowful, if not unwittingly tearjerker, account of a miserable man's life. A definite must-read. The chapter alone would make a fantastic short story.

[JADJARHD]

This one from Ayn Rand's short story Anthem is one of my favorites:

"…our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the thoughts of their minds. For all must agree with all, and they cannot know if their thoughts are the thoughts of all, and so they fear to speak."

[Derringer]

I really like the opening paragraph to Moby Dick

[Stieg]

I really like the opening paragraph to Moby Dick

Ditto.

Opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within, it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

[MaryLupin]

The first three that jump to mind are Robert Penn Warren's Democracy and Poetry. Wallace Steven's Necessary Angel. Steven's had this essay on the relationship between imagination and reality that I particularly liked. The third is Cynthia Ozick's "Mrs. Virgina Woolf: A Madwoman and Her Nurse"

Then, of course, there is Frank Kermode's The Sense of an Ending.

[Dori]

Crime and Punishment's second chapter. I interrupted my reading to turn on the computer and write this post. A sorrowful, if not unwittingly tearjerker, account of a miserable man's life. A definite must-read. The chapter alone would make a fantastic short story.

Really?! I just finished the second chapter a few minutes ago and it wasn't anything special, in my opinion. Then again, I'm usually not predisposed to such feelings when I read.

[Adolescent09]

Medea has some brilliant monologues.

Euripides' Medea is quite a singular and comical read... I agree that it has some great monologues.

[kandaurov]

Well, Dori, when talking about favourite things we are bound to always disagree in something :p So you're reading it now too. Are you enjoying it so far? :) I really like Dostoyevsky's raw account of life, and that feature is at its most transparent in this chapter. The other thing I love about him is the "stream of consciousness", though I haven't yet found a chapter where it is paradigmatically used.

[Redzeppelin]

"The Grand Inquisitor" by Dostoyevsky (as has been mentioned) is magnificent.

Moby Dick is full of amazing chapters, but "The Quarter Deck" is amazing.

Chapter Two in The Great Gatsby that takes place in the Valley of Ashes is excellent.

The second part of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Quentin Compson's chapter) is a stunning tour de force.

The monologue of Browning's "My Last Duchess" has a wonderfully understated tone of menace that generally slides past the inattentive reader.

Hemingways "interchapters" from In Our Time are incredible examples of "micro" or "flash" fiction 50 years before the genre came into existence.

Ch. 7 of The Grapes of Wrath dealing with the used car lots is a wonderful montage of multiple voices with a wonderful rhythmic, poetic flow.

From Crime and Punishment, the chapter where Raskolnikov forces Sonya to read the story of Lazarus is also a beatifully executed chapter.

[Dori]

Well, Dori, when talking about favourite things we are bound to always disagree in something :p

And so I did. Thanks for pointing it out :p .


So you're reading it now too. Are you enjoying it so far? :) I really like Dostoyevsky's raw account of life, and that feature is at its most transparent in this chapter. The other thing I love about him is the "stream of consciousness", though I haven't yet found a chapter where it is paradigmatically used.

Yes, I'm enjoying it thoroughly. However, I'm still trying to make the transition from Hugo to Dostoevsky ;) .