“Not a Ghost Story” by Pamela Painter, Vestalreview.net 2. The story is about the author, as she describes how she has been haunted by a ghost. She keeps repeating “If this were a ghost story” like she is trying to convince herself that it isn’t happening. As she is describing her past hauntings, she wishes it would all just end, as if she herself is in a story with an ending. The end of the story is her dreaming she is only reading a book of ghost stories that end.
For instance she moves like the “pendulum in a grandfather clock,” which steadily marks time alone. The beginning of the story simply explains the loneliness of Phoenix in many ways. Phoenix herself says that she is walking in the sleep of the abandoned cabins and trees with dead leaves. This path that she walked through to get to her grandson was cold, deadly, and lonely. She probably wouldn’t even take a path like this one if it wasn’t for her grandson she loved so
Essay topic 16- By the end of the novel Isobel has faced the ghosts of her past and is ready for her future. Amy Witting’s ‘I for Isobel’ is a bildungsroman novel centred around the life of Isobel Callaghan a young girl who has difficulty finding a purpose in life and a place in the world. The novel showcases her challenging and abusive upbringing brought on by her wild and depressing mother and close to non-existent and un-loving father, her childhood demons linger as Isobel’s struggles to fit in with societies norms and conventions. Her erratic and joyless childhood leads her on a journey for normality, friendship and acceptance to no initial avail. However, in the latter part of the novel Isobel experiences moments which lead her to
Confinement is a method of placing boundaries and limitations on something or someone. The notion of confinement is presented in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, through the main character Jane and her psychological journey as she faces confinement. The aspects of Jane's confinement create an excessive pressure upon her that ultimately leaves her no choice but to defy the norms of the nineteenth century in order to be free. The little knowledge presented to her keeps her unaware of her confinement, and it remains unfamiliar until through her own dread and apprehensiveness she begins to become aware of her own self. As the story transpires, Jane's unknown figure becomes all that is known to her; however, because of what is expected of her as a woman it is difficult for her to acknowledge her own self as she is afraid of her own monstrosity.
For the author of A Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, surrounds this very mysterious character with the issue of a wallpaper that is consuming the characters life. Gilman describes the characters dementia without directness to an "insanity". Jane, the main character knows that she has a mental issue and uses this journal to describe how she slowly loses her sanity. The curtness of how she lost her way made the story a little creepier, and more mysterious. In a novel the author could describe her past life for chapters and chapters, but knowing her life for such a short period of time made the story
This is the case for Emily Dickinson and her poetry, as well as two very different texts, ‘Walking Naked’ by Alyssa Brugman and the play ‘Stolen’ by Jane Harrison. They all show the desire to belong by several individuals, and all express the same issues that connect them, even though their stories are all vastly dissimilar to each other. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and ever since adolescence; she felt a lack of connection with the human social world. Her unusual connection with nature however had become her outlet of her lack of belonging in society. Her poetry very much reflects this, and she advises the audience subtly in her writing that it is not society’s fault that she cannot live in the regular social world, but she just needs something that society doesn’t give her.
In “Missing” Maxine is in distress because her brother is now missing, and her mom thinks he’s dead so she has a medium come and the medium gives a false reading which is stressful for Maxine. In “Among the Hidden” Jen is the girl in distress because she can’t go outside and she has to live with knowing her dad is disobeying the law because he works for the population police and their supposed to be getting arid of third children. “Missing” and “Among the Hidden” both have seemingly impossible tasks. In “Missing” a seemingly impossible task is Derek being able to stay hidden from friends, family, and the police. And in “Among the Hidden” it seems impossible that third children will ever be legal.
Kendra is worried and scrambles to figure out who her abuser is so she doesn’t have to worry anymore. As Kendra’s mind matures and opens up she still needs people to ease her to the answer of her abuser. Before Kendra met Meghan she was all alone. She was coping with her pain all by herself. She was even self-harming herself.
From the governess’ manuscript, how far away the ghost was from her, makes this account both unreliable and self important. For the Governess to be sure that Quint was looking directly at her, would have been difficult yet James includes this short passage, suggesting this interpretation of her. A second quotation from the novella, also suggesting the governess’ self importance is the following, “the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me” in reference to the sightings of the ghosts around Bly. Of course as the reader is aware, the governess has shown no real “heroism” at this point in the novel and has simply seen the ghosts, making this statement laughable; James often expresses ludicrous words from the governess, particularly in her monologues, where her thoughts are seen by the reader. Seeing herself as so important, “extraordinary” and
In the ending of the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, protagonist Edna Pontellier experiences a series of “awakenings” that isolated her from others and ultimately lead her to a state of total solitude. Even after Edna had experienced her “awakening” she still could not escape those that she needed a break from. Edna was not content with the way she had been living her life. She had tried countless times to leave her past and begin a new part of her life, but it was impossible. Her only solution was to commit suicide.