When Carolina looked at what the man gave to Vera, he gave 100 cruzeiros. Carolina was shocked because she would not expect a man to give her that much money and to actually help her out. In her entry from December 28, 1958, Carolina writes about a cat that has killed a rat she’s been trying to catch for days. “The cat is a wise one. She doesn’t have any deep loves and doesn’t let anyone make a slave of her.” (De Jesus, p. 135) In the cat, Carolina sees the value she prizes most in herself: independence.
The way she believes in the cat people form Oliver’s perspective portrays her as sick or crazy. Her passion turns to jealousy and as a result she pushes Oliver away. Ultimately she takes the doctors and her own life because of guilt. Oliver proposes to Irena and she tells him about the legend of the cat people. It becomes clear that Irena believes she is a descendent of the cat people and fears that she will transform into a panther if she kisses or has intimacy with another person.
Also, Rex and Rosemary constantly throw their kids into situations that most average children could never handle. Such as forcing them to live in “cat houses” and constantly packing up in the middle of the night and moving. During this part of the book I begin to feel for Jeanette, because I was given the luxury of inflatable water wings and she is forced to drown to learn to swim. Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle, wrote, “Mom frowned at me, ‘you’d be destroying what makes it special.’ She said, ‘it’s the Joshua trees struggle that gives it its beauty’” (38). I enjoy the mother’s outlook of the Joshua tree in this quote, it’s very positive, and reminded me of someone I know.
Another theme in this novel was the red pickle dish that belonged to Zeena. During their night alone Ethan and Mattie share the house with the cat, which first breaks Zeena’s pickle dish and then sits in Zeena’s rocking chair. The animal is a symbol of Zeena’s presence in the house, as an object that comes between Mattie and Ethan, and reminds them of the wife’s existence. The breaking of the dish, Zeena’s favorite wedding present, symbolizes the hardship of her and Ethan’s marriage. Zeena’s got so upset over the broken dish represents her deeper anguish over her broken marriage.
The female characters are also similar in the sense of their helplessness and vulnerability. The unnamed female in “ Hills Like White Elephants” is very dependent on the male character. She needs him to communicate to order her drinks because they’re in Spain and she’s unable to speak Spanish. In “\June Birthing,” Kathe faces a problem when she encounters a newborn fawn. She becomes almost paralyzed while trembling because of her incapability to do anything and knowing nothing about how to help the fawn.
Therefore, he prescribes for her a rest-cure. The rest-cure demands her to sit alone without thinking of anything or interacting with society. Instead of that, she should eat, sleep and sit in the upstairs room of a luxurious house which her husband rents. The wife tries to adapt herself, but unfortunately she become very nervous and angry with her husband for not doing anything for her: “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes” (par.24). The narrator describes the wife’s room, which has four views to refresh the air and a wonderful view the wife can see the beautiful landscape through.
All she has to talk to is ‘nobody but Curley’. Her dreadful frustration at being like this is made obvious when she is speaking to Lennie in the barn. Steinbeck writes; ‘And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away.’ The word ‘tumbled’ is used to suggest how desperately she needs to talk to someone. The word ‘passion’ is used to suggest the strong powerful need that she has to communicate how she feels to Lennie and it also stresses her impulsive nature. So far in ‘Of Mice and Men’ Curley’s wife has been presented in a negative way, in section 5 Steinbeck shows another side of her which has compassion and caring
The obsession of the color pink, the non-athletic abilities, and the simple things like how women walk or hold their books. In Chapter 9 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee also approaches the stereotypical expectations of females. "I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. "(Lee 81). Aunt Alexandra was horrified with the fact that Scout did not live up to the standards society had of women.
As all children are expected to be obedient in their home, the rebellion of Jing-mei in her home shows her strong feelings against being lived through vicariously. Instead of a stable environment, the home becomes a battlefield where Jing-mei’s mother is traumatized, “as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf.” The conflict between Jing-mei and her mother develops from their separate dialects. Because she grew up in America, Jing-mei has flawless English. In contrast, Jing-mei’s mother talks in imperfect English, with tense and verb errors. During the climax of the story, Jing-mei’s mother reverts to her native Chinese as she shouts at her daughter.
She then attends a luncheon at Oxbridge and becomes engaged in what she believes to be a “rational” conversation only to be distracted by a Manx cat outside the window. She visits the British Museum to see what she can learn about women from a historical perspective only to find that everything written about women has been written by men and shows women as inferior. These examples illustrate how women are denied the educational resources allowed to men – resources necessary to be a successful writer. The narrator brings up several examples of how the traditional roles of women prevent them from having the personal freedom required to be a successful writer. Women were expected to marry, serve their husbands and care for the children and household leaving them no time or privacy to