Curiosity Killed the Cat After reading the four short stories, the proverb “curiosity killed the cat” seemed to echo through my head. This proverb is meant to teach us that if you are too interested in things you should not be interested in, you may be causing yourself problems by trying to find out things you don't need to know. If curiosity is used foolishly it can result in a negative outcome, for example, Bluebeard’s wife wanting to find what is in the forbidden room in “Bluebeard”, the heroine entering the forbidden room in “The Bloody Chamber, and Sally who is overly curious and wants to know every detail about her husband in “Bluebeard’s Egg”. In comparison, if curiosity is used wisely it can result in a positive outcome, for example, the woman in “The Key” presents curiosity as something positive in her seminars and encourages the women not to settle for the unknown but to fight for the truth. In the short story, “Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault, curiosity gets Bluebeard’s wife in a great deal of trouble.
Martin bought the pack of Camels on Monday night… if any of the staff at F & S had seen him buy the cigarettes, they would have been astonished, for it was generally known that Mr. Martin did not smoke, and never had. No one saw him.” (Thurber 1) Mr. Martin was known to act a certain way. He’d never smoked nor drank in his life. If he were to be caught buying the cigarettes it would shock people because it is out of his character to do so. Mr. Martin was praised for his temperate habits being that the company’s “most efficient worker neither drinks nor smokes.” (4) Mr. Martin had been working at F & S for twenty-two years and because of his “usual” routine everyone knew him to the point where he was almost invisible.
Yet underneath all the glamour, Plath lives a very superficial and fake lifestyle, and she feels there is more to life than writing for a fashion magazine, or attending the elitest parties. Plath uses themes, literary techniques and emotion to convey to the reader her unhappiness with the life she leads. Throughout this prose two of the major themes are death and helplessness. Death being symbolic of change, gives us as readers some insight into what Sylvia Plath is feeling. Helplesness shows us how Plath is struggiling to fit into her lifestyle.
In this world there is no “Eros” type of loving, which is known as the powerful and passionate style of loving that blazes to life suddenly and dramatically (Wood 332). Truthfully there is no real love; everything is a shallow form of the word fueled only by sex. This is mainly due to the lack of interpersonal communication in the characters. This novel helps to paint a picture of a world that could one day be real, it allows us to evaluate our relationships with ourselves and how it affects our relationships with others. The main character Guy Montag is known as a “firefighter”, but instead of putting out fires he starts them.
Which ultimately lead the women to hide critical evidence from the men because they wouldn’t understand anyways. The setting, characters, and clues all contribute to the theme of gender roles of men and women in this short story. A big contributor of the theme of “A Jury of her Peers” is the setting in which the story takes place. Being that the story takes place in the early nineteen hundreds, the women are not seen as helpful. The women are kept in their domain, the kitchen, throughout the entire story because that is where men believed the women should be.
“Seeing” is a major symbol throughout the story, and when analyzed so much more can be understood about the characters, and the theme of the story. The name Seymour, but pronounced “see-more” tells the reader that he interrupts society in a different more realistic light. He did not always have this view point, but during the war he was exposed to life or death situations, and had to live on the bare essentials. Upon coming back to the United States he realized that people were very materialistic, and lived what he thought were fake lives. Muriel is more concerned about her appearance than her husband’s emotions, and reads women’s magazines while Seymour reads poetry.
As Montag is about to burn his house "Mildred went to the beetle with her suitcase mumbling" he looked desperately at his wife (Bradbury 108). Mildred, Montag's wife, called on the authorities because she personally did not want to live with someone who holds views on books. She betrayed Montag to earn her freedom from literature. But before that had happened, Faber and Montag discussed about a plan. But during the plan Montag could not hold in his anger by shouting "'Shut up!'"
This hurt that arises within people is characterized by the feeling of unhappiness. This idea is shown in Ann Beattie her short stories “Janus” and “The Burning House” where characters live in concealment in their everyday lives. Beattie believes that living a personal and public life of secrecy will generate unhappiness. This causes characters within Beattie’s stories to find themselves unsatisfied with their lives and their marriages. No character within Beattie’s novels have found marriage the answer to their happiness, and so “secret liaisons abound in Beattie’s fiction supporting characters with intimacy they cannot find in their more public marriages or cohabitations” (Cannon).People are so desperate to be happy in life , they seek other methods to find happiness; they have affairs and live in secret, but in the end they are only left with unhappiness.
Torvald is busy, I’m afraid.’ To which I would have Nora to say this hurriedly but politely as she is good friends with Dr Rank. I believe by doing this it will show the audience that although Nora is so frightened and scared by the way in which society has such an impact on women in those times, and will really show the audience how terrible it was for Nora to been see as a ‘perfect woman’. Dr Rank walks into the house and hangs up his fur coat and sits by the stove, he then replies to Nora telling her he hasn’t much time left, whilst he is explaining to Nora that his sexually transmitted infection; he inherited from his father, is finally taking his life
As a result of her husbands control, the woman develops and obsessive attachment to the wallpaper which masks the walls of her bedroom. Gilman composed the short story to make determined statements about feminism and individuality to oppose the male authority that ruled over her during her lifetime. Gilman does this by describing the narrators decent into madness, which is caused by many factors, all being linked to her husband. It’s immediately apparent in “The Yellow Wallpaper” that the woman allows herself to be inferior to men, in particular her husband, John. This ultimately leaves the reader with many questions about 19th century male-female relationships and perhaps insanity.