This epic poem, attributed to Homer, is considered by historians to be one of the oldest outlive works in western literature. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy, The Iliad tells of the battles and events during the quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior, Achilles. While many themes appearing in this classical fib can be used to teach about Ancient Greek company, the most apparent ones are war ( specifically glory in battles ), greek gods, and ancient politics. couple this fib with The Odyssey, Homer ‘s unleash sequel, and students can learn an huge amount about the traditions of Ancient Greece.
Ivanhoe
generator : Sir Walter Scott
Theme ( mho ) : chivalric England, the Crusades, socioeconomic status
One of the most popular adventure-filled historic novels ever written, Scott ‘s antic fib explores heroism, religion, and company during the Middle Ages. Most prominently, Ivanhoe evokes an important time in English history, when King Richard the Lion-Hearted returned to England after years spent fighting the Crusades in the Holy Land and being imprisoned in Germany. The fresh is besides the beginning material for the celebrated Robin Hood fictional character, who serves to examine identities within class rankings and human society as a hierarchy. Students will have much to discuss about Medieval society and the Crusades from this rich people, historical novel .
The Great Gatsby 
generator : F. Scott Fitzgerald
Theme ( randomness ) : The Roaring 20 ’ sulfur, the “ american ambition, ” sociology of wealth
Set in New York at the height of the roaring 20 ‘s, Fitzgerald ‘s masterpiece is a highly emblematic fresh about America as a whole during this era, and, in particular the decomposition of the american dream in the post-war era of unprecedented wealth. The range of characters in The Great Gatsby, including Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fight in World War I, exhibits the cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war and rise of the stock commercialize. Students will have batch to discuss about the sociology of class, status, wealth, and human values, as the tension of “ old money ” versus “ new money ” constitutes a central drive violence throughout the fresh .
Anna Karenina 
author : Leo Tolstoy
Theme ( s ) : 19th-century Russia, social change, authoritarian politics vs. democracy
tolstoy set this classic novel against the backdrop of the assorted historical changes sweeping through Russia during the late nineteenth century. Anna Karenina is rich with themes about clashing views between the old-time conservatives and nobility in russian society, who hold traditional, patriarchal values, and the new values of the Westernizers, who are more big and rationalism. Throughout the novel, traditions like serfdom and authoritarian government are brought into wonder and compared with the broad beliefs of engineering, rationalism, and democracy. Use this classical floor with your students to compare and contrast the changes in russian company with other countries and governments from across the populace .
The Scarlet Letter 
writer : Nathaniel Hawthorne
Theme ( mho ) : Colonial America, Puritanism, social roles
A novel steeped with images of life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and historical allusions, The Scarlet Letter remains a darling to explore Puritan traditions and early society in Colonial America. Focusing the history on Hester Prynne, an adult who becomes a social friendless, Hawthorne paints a picture of what happens to a stern, tight-knit community when one of its members commits a taboo work. The resultant role is a profoundly brooding, albeit dry, novel about religion, social flaws, female gender roles, and the diverse rules of sociable, legal, and religious institutions that students can approach from all angles .
Mansfield Park 
generator : Jane Austen
Theme ( s ) : priggish England, the british slave trade & Imperialism, sex roles
Austen ’ s classic library of novels all explore exchangeable themes of marriage, class, and company during the victorian era in England. however, what makes Mansfield Park a prize to study in the classroom is the brooding heroine, Fanny Price, who quietly objects to traditional gender and social roles. There is besides the ever-present, haunting theme of economic wealth stemming from the slave trade and british Imperialism as seen through the Bertram family. While it is one of the lesser know novels in the canon of Austen ‘s literature, Mansfield Park will leave students with numerous sociable studies themes to spark discussion .
The Age of Innocence
generator : Edith Wharton
Theme ( s ) : The Gilded Age, wealth & sociable condition, American upper class society
The Age of Innocence is a dateless novel that explores themes of wealth, classify, and social condition in the Gilded Age of America. Wharton builds complex characters that take pride in their sociable standings, most of whom come from “ old money ” and feel threatened by those that are coming from “ newly money. ” Money, custom, gender roles, and social duties are values deeply held by the characters, but besides ironically criticized in this authoritative novel. To spark discussion, students can compare and contrast the function of wealth and social status in the Gilded Age with modern club .
North and South
writer : Elizabeth Gaskell
Theme ( south ) : The Industrial Revolution, working classify rights, manufacturing diligence economics
North and South is one of the quintessential historic novels that explores themes around the changes that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. With the raise of a work class, Gaskell dexterously writes about the difficult conditions of daily life and the health problems suffered by the workers in manufacturing factories. Through two contrasting protagonists, differing in sex, social rank, and ideals, this brooding social-novel will undoubtedly take students on a travel traversing the change in class structure, gender conflicts, urbanism, and workers ‘ rights .
The Last of the Mohicans
generator : James Fenimore Cooper
Theme ( sulfur ) : The french and amerind War, the American Frontier, bias
Taking plaza during the french and indian War, The final of the Mohicans chronicles the clash between the french and the English for colonial control of the land, and the Native Americans who were caught in the middle. With encompassing themes of savageness, colonialism, bias, and war, Cooper ‘s classic novel is one of the bloodiest in american literature, and that tragic bloodshed stems from the force of ‘ advance ’ pushing the frontier westward. In studying this novel, students will bring racism and prejudice into sharp concenter, understanding that the skirmishes between two individuals of different races, both of whom are in turn at odds with peoples of their own coloring material, finally can lead to harmonious resolutions .
Les Misérables 
author : Victor Hugo
Theme ( second ) : The french Revolution, classify inequality, social department of justice
Students may already be familiar with certain diagram elements from the musical adaptation of Hugo ‘s classical floor, but his five-part novel is an flush more poignant, in-depth examination of the complexities of the french Revolution. Les Misérables gives a windowpane into the social and class struggles of different groups of people throughout the war and revolution that changed french society everlastingly. Through meticulous character initiation and exuberant descriptions of place, the novel examines human hurt and inequality in-depth, which students can use to explore the french sociable baron structures that led to poverty, injustice, and rotation in the inaugural space .
Gone with the Wind 
writer : Margaret Mitchell
Theme ( s ) : The Civil War, Reconstruction Era, Southern society, slavery and emancipation
Mitchell ‘s Pulitzer Prize -winning novel is a sweeping epic about the South during the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction Era as told through the distributor point of view of amphetamine class grove owners. go with the Wind opens in pre-Civil War Georgia focusing on the celebrated literary heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, whose liveliness is steeped in tradition, wealth, and Southern pride ; however, the war itself causes a breakdown of traditional sex roles and hierarchy as slaves are freed from her plantation by the Emancipation Proclamation. A novel filled with rich people descriptions of Southern geography, this report gives students an opportunity to discuss the intricacies of class, race, sex, and those affected by war through the lens of the most dissentious time in american history .
The Jungle 
generator : Upton Sinclair
Theme ( randomness ) : plow of the twentieth Century, factories & british labour party workers, American kernel packing diligence, immigrant rights
Sinclair wrote his classical fresh to portray the harsh work conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States through farinaceous imagination of the kernel packing diligence. The Jungle shows a once exalted class, who put their religion in the american Dream of intemperate work, slowly refuse into the hands of a barbarous and prejudice economic and social organization. Sinclair cynically calls the consequence of capitalism and corruptness on the bring classify “ evil, ” as he depicts laborers throughout the novel who are slowly used up, tortured, and destroyed the hard they work. While the story is not for the faint of heart, it will inactive give students the opportunity to discuss how worker and immigrant rights evolved as a resultant role of Sinclair ‘s novel .
Catch-22 
author : Joseph Heller
Theme ( mho ) : World War II, war & military life, anti-Capitalism
Heller ‘s satirical war novel examines war and the military through the experiences of Yossarian, who is caught in an ageless paradox of maintaining sanity while fulfilling his service requirements as a pilot in World War II. Catch-22 places the characters in absurd, desperate, and tragic circumstances, highlighting the absurdity of war and military politics. Students will be enamored by the non-chronological structure of the novel, and the anti-Capitalism, anti-war and anti-government sentiments will well lead to hearty class discussions .
1984
writer : George Orwell
Theme ( second ) : dystopian company, Nationalism, human rights
While Orwell ‘s 1984 is the only fresh on this list depicting an imagine future rather than an actual by, the classic history of a dystopian club explores political themes that are still relevant to advanced day. Portraying a “ perfect ” totalitarian company, which is the most extreme realization of a government with absolute power, Orwell warns readers about a express that can monitor and control every aspect of person homo life. Students can compare and contrast the political themes of politics overreach, mass surveillance, propaganda, and inhibitory regimes to actual historical examples as an in-class exercise .
To Kill a Mockingbird 
writer : Harper Lee
Theme ( sulfur ) : The Great Depression, the South, racial injustice, class disparity
A classic of modern american literature and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird remains a relevant examen of racial and class inequality in the Deep South. Based on Lee ‘s own have and social observations growing up in Alabama, the small-town in the South is a character in itself, giving students a first-hand expect at the historic events and traditions that evolved via the writer ‘s own insight on life sentence in her hometown. While social prejudice and injustice in the Depression-era South are at the vanguard throughout Lee ‘s classic fresh, students can besides analyze the importance of moral education and relate many of the themes to events happening today .
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References
Read more: The 36 Best (Old) Books We Read in 2021
project Gutenberg : classical Catalog of Ebooks
Images : Wordsworth Classic Books
monet Hendricks is the web log, social media, and meme connoisseur for Social Studies School Service. Passionate about the field of education, she earned her BA from the University of Southern California before deciding to go back to get her overlord ‘s degree in Educational Psychology. She presently attends the alumnus program at Azusa Pacific University pursuing advance degrees in School Psychology and Applied Behavior Analysis. Her front-runner activities include watching documentaries on mental health and cooking adventurous vegetarian recipes .
