"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is a novel that focuses upon the severe emotional trauma of a young boy coping with his father's death. For Johnny Freeman, the seemingly innocent setting of a typical American elementary school becomes a dangerous psychological battlefield, his most threatening "enemy" being his teacher, Miss Holloway, a first-year instructor beginning her career with only textbook knowledge and stubborn determination. Johnny Freeman and Miss Holloway clash the first day of school and set into motion a war of minds, wills, and emotions. Neither will relent; each is driven for various complex reasons to dominate the other. Their personalities demand that only one of them will emerge as the winner in this struggle, creating a psychological fight for survival with terrifying and deadly consequences for the loser.

"Down and Out in Paris and London" is typically perceived as non-political. Orwell's first book, it examines his life with the poor in two cities. Although on the surface "Down and Out" seems not to be about politics, Orwell covertly conveys a political message. This is contrary to popular critical opinion. What most critics fail to acknowledge is that Orwell wrote for a middle- and upper-class audience, showing a previously unseen view of the poor. In this he suggests change to the policy makers who are able to bring about improvements for the impoverished. "Down and Out" is often ignored by both critics and readers of Orwell. With an examination of Orwell's politicizing background, and of the way he chooses to present himself and his poor characters in "Down and Out," I argue that the book is both political and characteristic of Orwell's later work.

"Retro" is a novel which attempts to depict the psychological reality of the spiritually isolated individual characterized in traditional gothic novels, in this case the alienated individual in the contemporary American South. The novel follows the doctrine set down by Roland Barthes, Frank Kermode, and other postmodern critics, which holds that, as Kermode puts it, "all closure is in bad faith." Therefore, rather than offering resolution to the problems and events presented in the text, the novel attempts instead to illustrate the psychological effects its main character experiences when confronted with a world that offers only irresolution and uncertainty. The novel's strategy is to depart from conventional, realistic modes of narration and to adopt instead certain characteristics of satire, surrealism, and the type of grotesque often associated with the gothic novel.