The End of the Road (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: John Barth
- First Published: 1958
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Existentialism
- Time of Work: 1951-1955
- Setting: Wicomico, Maryland
- Genres: Long fiction, Existential literature
- Subjects: 1950’s, Teaching or teachers, Values, United States or Americans, Sex or sexuality, Doctors, College life, Adultery, Abortion, Existentialism, Life, philosophy of
- Locales: Maryland
Characters Discussed
Jacob Horner, the narrator of the novel, a thirty-year-old academic who has completed his course work and passed the oral exams for a master’s degree in English at The Johns Hopkins University. Stricken by an inexplicable paralysis in the Baltimore bus station, Horner is rescued by the Doctor, who puts him through a course of bizarre therapies and then dispatches him to teach grammar at the Wicomico State Teachers College on the eastern shore of Maryland. Horner, a thoroughly existentialist man, has no fixed beliefs and no real persona; as he admits, his...
[The entire page is 756 words long]
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