The Queen's Habit Sparknotes

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The Queen's Gambit was written by Walter Tevis, this was his 4th book he wrote. Walter Tevis in San Francisco, 1928. His family moved to Kentucky when he was 10. He was enrolled in a school where he worked in a pool room until college. After college he worked in the Navy, after being discharged, he went to college to study English Literature. He began to write short stories that were getting put into the local newspapers. From then, in 1959 he published his first book, The Hustler. Beth Harmon is the author of the book based around her chess journey. When she was only 8 years old, she was an orphan. She was incredibly smart for her age at the orphanage, so she would often clean the erasers down in the basement where she learned to play chess. …show more content…

Next up is Benny. Benny was a national champion before Beth came and beat him. He helped Beth study for many of her large games, but at the same time, being one of her only friends. I feel that Benny is a dynamic character because in the beginning, Benny didn't really believe in Beth and saw her as an enemy, then as the story continued, he liked her and helped her win. Next is the Borgov. He was the world champion of chess for the past year. In previous years Beth had played him, only to lose horribly. I believe that Borgov is a static character because throughout the book he was the big scary opponent and even after winning, he was still scary. The setting of The Queen's Gambit is the mid 1950-1960s in Lexington, Kentucky. The mood of this story is gloomy and nerving/suspenseful. I feel as if the story has a gloomy theme to it because of how Beth's life played out. From the start, she was a sad orphan who got addicted to tranquilizers. Throughout her life, her orphaned dad left her and her mother died. She went through a time of grief where all she did was drink. Now the reason why this book was nerving or even suspenseful was because during the games you would get to know her emotions in …show more content…

This book's point of view is third person omniscient. I know this because the book refers to Beth and pronouns such as she/her. But we also get to know Beth's thoughts on her gameplay and just her normal life. In the book it says “She went slack inside her, and she heard her own silent voice saying, Take it!” This shows us how we are able to know what she is saying in her head during her game. The theme for the Queen's Gambit is power and suspense. The first thing I chose was power because in the Queen's Gambit it says “The U.S. Championship would be in 3 weeks; it was time it was won by a woman. It was time she won.” This shows power in Beth because she wants to win the U.S. championship as the first woman, and that she is able to win it shows a lot of power within herself. Now for suspense, the book reads “She would have to bring the rook up to protect.” This is a suspenseful scene because we don't know if Beth is going to win or lose against the world champion. We also get to see how stressed Beth is and how she tries to fix her mistakes. I loved this book, it's definitely an 8/10. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys chess, and it has a really good

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