Ellie’s decisive ability and her morals are thrown into chaos when she arrives at the family house and finds her dogs dead. She remains in a leadership position when she finds the eldest pet still alive and tells the others to help it while she runs inside to see what had happened to her parents. As Ellie wrote after the traumatic incident, “I knew that nothing sp awful could have happened to the dogs unless something more awful could have happened to my parents.” Although she says she had lost all rational thought. She still made good decision when the tragic events that had happened were unravelling before her. “They lay beside their little galvanized iron humpies, flies all over them, oblivious to the last warmth of the sun”.
In the first story the wife had cheated on the husband and ran away with her two daughters. One was just a baby, the other was a 9 year old wearing a red shawl. No one had seen what exactly happened when she left. The husband had created a story in his own head how “Aanakwad had thrown her daughter to them (the wolves)” when he had found the red shawl covered in blood (Erdrich 2). The father was mad at his wife for what she had done, so he saw it as his wife threw their sweet little girl to the wolves.
Maggie was very uneasy around her sister; her mother tells her anxiousness in regard to Dee’s visitation: “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (119). Dee undermines her sister, not always knowing what type of impact she impresses upon Maggie. Dee does not appreciate her sister or her mother, both of which is barely educated and lives in a poor, dilapidated home. In fact, Dee had her own way of making this noticeable in one instance when she stood off in the distance while their first home burned down with her mother and sister inside (121). She does not feel comfortable taking on the old fashioned lifestyle her mother and sister do.
Sister, the narrator of “Why I Live at the P.O. is a very resentful, bitter and jealous character in this short story. She has many reasons to act as she does. Her family consists of four people who do not seem to be very sane. Her mother seems to be constantly taking up for her sister, Stella-Rondo.
When Dee finds out that the quilts were already given to her sister, Dee gets furious and believes that she deserves the quilts more than Maggie and that Maggie would not take care of them as well as she would. Poor Maggie says to her mother "She can have them Mama...I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts". Maggie is used to never getting anything. Throughout the entire story, it says that Maggie gives up many things so Dee can have what she needs or wants. Dee is quite ungrateful.
Feminism in Paradise of the Blind Thomas 1 The novel, Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong, depicts the life of a young Vietnamese girl seeking to find her own identity. The young girl, Hang, experiences conflict within and out of her family due to the feminism in Vietnam. The novel creates an understanding of feminism in Vietnam through the various experiences Hang had to endure throughout her lifetime. Women in the novel are seen as weak and inferior. Earlier in the life of Aunt Tam, “some man jumped” (186) on her and nearly took away her purity.
For example she fought off the 3 heads along with the bird so that they would not feed off of injured Haku. She was also warned by the boiler room man to be very careful that Haku was very dangerous although he was injured. Yet she insisted on giving him the food from the river spirit which helped to heal him. Chihiro placed her life in danger to help her true love. Next the true loves of the hero’s affection were her parents and Master Haku.
They manage to flee together, but ultimately the grandma must kill her beloved dog in order to protect them both. Hood emphasizes the conflicting emotions involved in unconditional love and familial commitments. The grandma shows devotion to her deceased daughter when she tends to her grave. However, she is also reminded of her offspring’s wild and difficult personality now that she is dealing with raising her daughter’s similarly difficult child. Although she greatly loves her dog, she somehow manages to sacrifice him, all to protect the unspoken higher commitments she feels for her daughter and grandchild.
It is all triggered from a minor act of provocation which enables some sort of action with intent to harm. Whether big or small aggression does not happen on its own. For example, a woman gets yelled at by her supervisor at work, due to the fear of losing her job she decides not to assault her boss. She was aggravated when she came home and the first thing she saw was her dog laying on the floor, so the woman kicks her dog out of the way. In this case the dog did nothing to deserve a kick, but the woman released her aggression out on the dog because she had to let out her frustration.
Also, her mother does not like patty for who she is and just wants her to be exactly like her. Another example is, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. A girl like your age looking like you do”(75). As Patty hears this from her mother, Patty starts to have an internal conflict. She let’s her emotions get the best of her and feels anger and shame.