Passage
Who Can Tell Me
King Lear, William Shakespeare
A king's deepest terror breaks loose when he can no longer trust his own mind.
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Passage
Money Brings Everything
Father Goriot, Honoré de Balzac
A dying father realizes too late that love followed his money, not him.
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Passage
Jessica's Planned Escape
The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
Love demands betrayal here, as Jessica risks everything to escape her father.
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Place
Doctor Manette’s Garret
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
In a locked upper room, a freed man has been reduced to making shoes.
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Place
Athens
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
A city of wedding music and hard law, where a daughter must choose obedience, exile, or death.
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Character
Miranda
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
A sheltered daughter watching a ship break apart and feeling every cry strike her heart.
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Character
Brabantio
Othello, William Shakespeare
A father and senator wakes to find his household authority broken open in the street.
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Place
Royal Palace in “The Frog-Prince”
Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
A promise made alone at a well comes due at the King's own dinner table.
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Passage
A Glooming Peace
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
Too late, the feud ends only after love has paid its final price.
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Place
Baptista’s house
The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare
A father runs his own house like a market, and his daughters are the goods on sale.
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Character
Jephro Rucastle
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
A jovial employer whose cheerfulness masks a locked room and a coerced daughter.
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Object
Andrea-Eugénie Marriage Contract
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
A wedding deal built on a fake nobleman, waiting to be exposed in front of Paris.
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Character
Mr. March
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
An absent father at war gives the girls a standard of courage they must practice at home.
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Place
Bald Hills
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
A father runs his household like a fortress, and his children pay for it.
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Character
Chryseis
The Iliad, Homer
Chryseis is the captive daughter whose return exposes the army’s broken order.
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Passage
Telling Him About His Child
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
He reveals a dying convict's greatest hope, then must face its cost.
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Character
Ghismonda
The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio
A noble daughter whose love survives even the violence meant to erase it.
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Character
Mr. Woodhouse
Emma, Jane Austen
A gentle father whose fear of change turns affection into soft restraint.
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Passage
Telling Her Now
North and South, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
A father's hidden decision shatters Margaret's world before her mother even knows.
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Passage
Tai Yu Departs In Tears
Hung Lou Meng, or, The Dream of the Red Chamber, Book I, Cao Xueqin
Sent away for her own good, Tai-yu must trade grief for uncertain refuge.
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Character
Colonel Munro
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
The old commander of Fort William Henry carries both a garrison’s fate and a father’s fear.
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Passage
Held Until Marriage
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Trapped by cruelty, Cathy faces a marriage vow twisted into a weapon.
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Character
Agi Morato
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Zoraida’s father stands for the life she must betray in order to escape.
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Passage
Teach My Ántonia
My Ántonia, Willa Cather
A father's desperate plea turns a neighborly visit into a test of mercy.
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Character
Ophelia
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
A young woman carries flowers through a court that has turned her love into evidence.
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Passage
His Father Died In His Arms
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
He returns home carrying unbearable news, only to lose the last parent left.
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Passage
Somewhere to Go
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Humiliated yet defiant, he begs to know whether misery has stripped him of humanity.
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Passage
Proud Humility
Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
She bows to contempt outwardly while inwardly knowing she deserves far more.
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Passage
The Nunnery Or The Tomb
Noli Me Tangere, José Rizal
With her beloved dead, Maria Clara sees only two futures: cloister or grave.
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Character
Cosette
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
A child with a water bucket becomes the beloved daughter whose happiness costs Valjean everything.
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