Suwarrow is a professional soldier and a man of limited outlook. He is completely devoted to his chosen occupation and does whatever is necessary to win battles. He has no false pride and no false notions of what is becoming to an officer. He is not a spit-and-polish general. He […]
Read more Character Analysis SuwarrowCharacter Analysis Gulbeyaz
Like Donna Julia, the Sultana Gulbeyaz is a frustrated wife. She has to share her husband with three other wives and fifteen hundred concubines. Moreover, she is twenty-six and he is fifty-nine. Like Donna Julia she wants love and cannot get it. She has little self-control and is a creature […]
Read more Character Analysis GulbeyazCharacter Analysis John Johnson
John Johnson is a practical man of the world who, like George Bernard Shaw’s Bluntschli in Arms and the Man, has neither ideals nor illusions and who makes his living as a mercenary soldier. He believes that it is better to run away or surrender than to fight to the […]
Read more Character Analysis John JohnsonCharacter Analysis Lambro
Lambro has become rich by smuggling piracy and slave trading. He has become hardened by the kind of life he had chosen to live. The only soft spot in his heart is his love for his motherless daughter and his love for his enslaved homeland. He is a man of […]
Read more Character Analysis LambroCharacter Analysis Haidee
Haidee is an ardent, beautiful and sensuous young woman in search of perfect love. She is all heart, and her mind has received little, if any, formal training. She has had religious instruction, however; Byron tells us that she is pious and has been taught the tenets of the Greek […]
Read more Character Analysis HaideeCharacter Analysis Donna Julia
Donna Julia is a young woman of twenty-three who is married to a man of fifty. The personality of her husband is neither attractive nor repulsive; it is neutral. He is incapable of giving his wife the affection and comradeship that she needs. These she finds in Don Juan and […]
Read more Character Analysis Donna JuliaCharacter Analysis Don Juan
At the age of sixteen Don Juan has completed his formal education and is ready to set out on the “grand tour” which, in England, often followed graduation from the university. Byron himself had made a grand tour in the Near East after he received his degree from Cambridge. Juan […]
Read more Character Analysis Don JuanSummary and Analysis Canto XVII (Unfinished)
Summary There are three kinds of orphans: (1) the children who have lost their parents; (2) the children who receive no love from their parents; and (3) children who have no brothers or sisters. Of the three the most unfortunate are those who have lost their parents and are wealthy. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Canto XVII (Unfinished)Summary and Analysis Canto XVI
Summary Canto XVI is divided into four sections. The first section is a ghost episode. On the night of the great supper, Juan, after he has gone to bed, feels “restless, and perplexed, and compromised.” His mind is filled with thoughts of the sixteen-year-old Aurora and her cool unworldliness. In […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Canto XVISummary and Analysis Canto XV
Summary After five stanzas on the author’s poor opinion of life, Byron provides some more characterization of Don Juan, or at least reinforces what he had already provided. Juan’s manner is natural; he makes no attempt to make an impression. There is nothing studied or artificial in his conduct. He […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Canto XV