In Catherine, Called Birdy, many women gave Birdy advice but she never really listenened to them, but when she did, she made a decision that changed her life forever. Her mother told her “Don't Stretch your legs longer than your stockings or your toes will stick out. You are so much already, Little Bird. Why not cease you fearful pounding against the bars of your cage and be content?” In other words, she is saying that she needs to be happy with what she has because what she has is all she needs. Also that she needs to stop trying to be who she is not.
She wishes to teach this to her two daughters but times have changed and her daughters have difference views of what they think heritage is. “Everyday Use” shows the difference between learning about heritage and learning from it. The direct and the indirect characterization of the three main characters help the reader understand the different views of heritage; Mama thinks Dee rejects it, Mama is ignorant to the realness of heritage, and Maggie learns from it. The direct characterization of Dee leads the reader to think that she rejects her mother’s heritage. Direct characterization is when the narrator, in this case ‘Mama’, tells the reader what the character’s traits are.
Change comes with certain adjustments, and everyone deals with these adjustments differently; therefore, ultimately, the poet suggests that if these adjustments are not met with reality at the right time, it can be costly to everyone involved. In Nepinak’s poem, he describes the grandmother as an old fashioned woman living in the modern day world. The unfamiliarity of her surroundings causes her to constantly live her life within her dreams. The words “berries” and “roots” create an image of the nature she was once surrounded in and suggests her longing to be back in that environment. She takes comfort in the nostalgia of her past, which in turn becomes detrimental to her abilities to cope with the present, and ultimately the future.
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates," Thomas Szasz (1973). In David Kaplan's short story, "Doe Season," Andy is a young girl struggling to discover who she is or she wants to be, often doing things to fit in; however, through the course of a few unlikely events, she is finally able to truly find out who she is. Kaplan uses the sport of hunting and the cruelities of killing to illustrate the differences in the sport between men adn women. He also uses the dream and the owl to help illustrate the "final realization."
She had no confidence in her mother growing up, and saw her as a “limit” and an “embarrassment”. Later in Tan’s life, she found several surveys which led her to realize that she was not alone; there were other Asian-Americans who may have shared the same struggles as her. Tan creates a symbolic diction through the use of words like “broken”, “limited”, and “fractured”. She is very repetitive with her use of these words, although she explains how she hated when people described her mother’s english that way. Although Tan knows that the way her and her mother converse is not grammatically correct, she has grown to love it.
From the beginning when we were first introduced to Dee, we find that she has changed her name to Wangero saying that Dee is “dead” because she didn’t think her name, Dicie, had any cultural significance and so she choice a name she felt suited her more. She says she couldn’t bear being named after people who oppress her. She has no connection or respect with her family. This is sad because she doesn’t like who she once was. Although she has learned a lot from her schooling and has a better knowledge than her mom & sister, I feel she possesses this know-it-all attitude about what heritage really is.
The gesture also inspires Edna to speak openly and freely and by doing so Edna feels intoxicated as if she tasted “the first breath of freedom” [VII Chopin]. Madame Ratignolle’s sympathy gives Edna the courage to say what is on her mind without censoring, an exercise that helps her outward existence and inward life to correspond. To Edna, Madame Ratignolle is an embodiment of the mother woman, and through her presence Edna realizes that she is not like her, and that she does not want to devote herself to her husband and children, she would rather have some space and freedom for herself to pursue her interests. Thus Edna realizes that she is not and does not want to be a mother woman. This realization helps Edna further understand herself and she gradually starts neglecting her marital obligations in action rather than only questioning them in her head.
She is first perceived as a weak character who Iago says keeps many thoughts to herself: "She puts her tongue a little in her heart," meaning that many of her most critical thoughts remain unsaid. Even Desdemona has to encourage her to speak. This silence throughout much of the play may be one cause of her drastically changing at the end. Initially Emilia sets out to please Iago without question, as this was her role as an Elizabethan wife, however at the end she speaks against him when she realizes his true intentions. Her change at the end of the play could show that she’s isn’t an outsider, as she now has her own opinion and her own voice like many of the other characters within the play.
Wollstonecraft mentions women as virtuous and if women did not have virtue than they had no soul. The acquirement of virtue ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness. Wollstonecraft is saying that women were choosing to be virtuous over being happy. To be virtuous in the mind of Providence was to be happy.
In my opinion I feel that the counseling did not help Ludo because he still had embedded in his believe that he is a female. I disagree with Ludo’s mother’s behavior towards his gender confusion. I feel that she condoned his behavior and actually helped to let him believe that he is a female. I agree that Ludo was trying to find his identity, which is a normal phase that all children experience, however I think that it is the role of parents to help children find themselves by explaining to them their gender and what is the role that a person of that gender is suppose to follow. If it turns out that that child becomes transgender, at least that parent has done their job as a parent by educating that child what his/her role entails.