"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence and "The Shining Houses" by Alice Munro portray characters who struggle to escape the power of their suppressors due to economic wealth, minority of age groups, as well as intentions and wishes of characters. First off, economic power or wealth causes problems for characters within “The Rocking-Horse Winner” as well as “The Shining Houses”. Within the story “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, the little boy, Paul, begins to understand that although his family has material items, they are not very wealthy. Soon enough, Paul begins to see the effects this has on his household and family. He sees his mother is unhappy and hears the house whisper, “There must be more money!” (Lawrence 19).
Bessie’s sense of duty to her father keeps her from accepting Berol’s proposal and running away with him. Jacob Novak obligation to his father keeps him away from Masha and breaks her heart. Masha’s family class compared to Novak’s was different. Novak’s father was rich. The book says that a cuff button of his suit was more expensive than the entire house where Marsha and her family lived.
Anna’s mother telling her she is overweight, their lack of money, and the desperate need of help at their families factory brings Anna back to what she thinks is the reality of a Mexican-American teenager living in the lower class of society. As the stereotypical image of Anna and the messages she is getting from her mother continue to occur, the messages she receives from her boyfriend and teacher help her realize the future she could have. While Anna’s mother tells her constantly that she is too fat, "How do you expect to find a husband and have children with all that weight on you?” Anna is able to stabilize her confidence by the comments of her boyfriend. “You have a really beautiful face”, he says. Also, as her parents barley consider the idea of Anna getting into college, her teacher tells them that “Anna is a smart girl, she has a lot that she can contribute to this world.” As these messages help Anna find her identity, she begins to notice that her chances of going to Columbia University are within arms reach.
Male Dominant Society The book Bread Givers has a lot of obvious themes throughout it; however I think the theme of males being seen as more important and more powerful than women stands out the most. As the daughters Bessie, Mashah, Fania, and Sara grow up in a poor household, they are burdened with the responsibility of making money to support each other and their parents. They are responsible for making money for food, necessities, and also for paying rent. Although their father doesn’t work, he put all of the pressure on his daughters especially during the time that they couldn’t find jobs and continued to demand to receive their wages. Their father spent most of his time praying and studying the Torah and wanted to find his daughters
Della Mae Justice took in her niece and nephew who were in foster care. She didn't grow up to immediately become middle-class. What Justice did was work so hard to climb out of the working-class to become middle-class so that her niece and nephew could have more than what she was offered when she was their age. Aware of the financial situations, Justice is compared to others in the upper and working class, she struggles with the different cultures each has. Lewin quotes Justice when she says, "'My stomach's always in knots getting ready to go to a party, wondering if I'm wearing the right thing, if I'll know what to do..." (70) This happens because of the different cultures the middle-class, which Justice is now in, presents, compared to the lower class she used to be in.
The injury for both bard and settled living white girls is that their parents lives have influence on their personal inadequacy that lead to the sense of individual failure in which their class is variously displaced. As lack of money affects the girls. The status associated with having money for the name brand clothes, nicer cars and so forth. And as Bettie stated, “…along with the status differences associated with aspirations for four year college vs. community college, and, related to that, with participation in a vocational vs. college preparatory curriculum, was a clear source of class and race resentment and helped shape membership in friendship groups.” (Bettie, 2003, page 11) The fact that settled living and hard living girls share the common of economic struggle status organized them as “non preps” which means they are not considered the achievers or leaders in school’s eyes. The invisibility of economic class problem is common in the school whereas teachers and students assumed that economic class did not affect individual students’ lives.
She also decided to give more precedence to career rather than her family which in turn created a huge gap between herself and her family. As she became obsessed with her work, she began to overlook her family. In this way, the ambition for the top, the allotment of more time for work all contributed in weakening Kate’s family relationships. In the novel, Crow Lake it was also revealed how loneliness can bring two teens together through the relationship between Matt Morrison and Marie Pye. As Mary’s brother Laurie ran way from home after the clash with their father Calvin Pye, their mother got sick.
They’d spend every cent on themselves if I’d only let them. But Bessie spends nothing on herself.” Pg 46 While Mashah is worried about her, buying her own towel and toothbrush, while everyone else has to share. In this day parents are big into their children’s marriages. Reb does not want to let Bessie ho without something in return since he will be loosing all the income. “It’s not enough to take my Bessie without a dowry.
Right then Sylvia realizes that the sailboat is something she and her family could never afford. Because of this she becomes angry and asks Miss Moore “ watcha bring us here for?”(6) This brings up the thought that maybe Sylvia is mad about the price of the sailboat, and maybe seeing how expensive it is will motivate her to be successful in life. Right now Sylvia doesn’t have really anything to motivate herself with other than the incident in the store, but maybe down the line she’ll find more things that will help to motivate
Even though Daisy is in love with Gatsby she marries Tom “because [Gatsby] was poor and [Daisy] was tired of waiting for [Gatsby] (137).” This shows that for Gatsby to accomplish his dream and be happy, he has to have money. Because of Daisy’s status she cannot or will not marry a person of a lower status, of which Gatsby had been until he made all of his new money. In conclusion, Gatsby’s dream and the American dream share some aspects, but they are not the same thing. The American dream is entirely focused on earning money and status to progress and change what one was in the past. Gatsby on the other hand is living in the past and cannot be happy with moving forward.