For example the “evil” stepmother, Margarethe’s actions performs are inherently evil, and rude towards her stepdaughter, but because she is a widow struggling to ensure that she and her two daughters survive. This novel challenges the fairy tale idea that the most physically appealing character has the most interesting personality and has the most interesting story to tell. Clara is kept hidden in her home first by her mother and later by herself. As a child, she was kidnapped and held for some reasons, but she believed she was captured by water-spirits and turned into a changeling. After her mother dies,
Williams’ play is an example of a modern tragedy and Blanche is a complex tragic hero, as she is embodying both the traditional aspects of a tragic hero, but also introducing the new ideologies simultaneously. Williams introduces glimpses of an Aristotelian tragic hero in Blanche’s entrance. Blanche initially appears to fulfil the criteria of nobility; her arrival in the shabby and deprived setting of New Orleans coupled with her reaction of surprise and disbelief, ‘this- can this- be her home?’ clearly highlights her incompatibility to the surroundings immediately. Williams includes stage directions that allow the reader to build up a strong idea of Blanche’s appearance: ‘Her appearance is incongruous to this setting,’ and her distinct mannerisms. She seems to be superior compared to her surroundings, virginal and demure due to her ‘Southern belle’ upbringing and these traits are obvious in her choice of attire: ‘She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and ear-rings of pearl, white gloves and hat...’ These are expensive garments that denote grandeur and wealth and ultimately purity.
The way that it is used here gives the entire poem a very fictional feel. The content of the poem (“give me… the forest… the river… sky…”) is obviously not realistic; you can’t give someone the “gold from the sun”. The fairytale like description shows the narrator in a very gullible, naïve sort of light; she seems to give everything to her love without a moments doubt, not seeing that she being taken advantage of or, even if she does see, hoping that her partner still loves her enough to stay with her. The use of the mythical, fictional imagery and fairy tale atmosphere in the poem help the reader to understand and empathize with the narrator and what she is going through. We see divorces all around us, so much so that it has become very monotonous and we fail to really understand want the divorced people go through.
Just like what the devil did to Eve, he promised her that the forbidden fruit would give her sensations beyond her wildest beliefs but ended up getting her kicked out of Eden and punished humans for eternity. The ocean is like this to Edna because it promises freedom, which is exactly what she has been looking for, and it ends up being the death of a woman who already has a good amount of independence. Chopin also makes Edna seem less than holy in this passage because after all, she is a woman and since her transformation stumbled and was never truly completed, she is stuck between a sacred figure and just another failure. Edna decides to kill herself on her way to beach because of her suffering and search for more and more freedom. The weather amplifies the feeling of pain and hopelessness, the sun is hot and the water seems like the perfect relief to get away from everything.
Hawthorne describes Pearl as “demon” child. This is ironic because Dimmesdale is considered the devil. In the novel, Hawthorne depicts Hester as a mother who only feels safe and comfortable when her own daughter is asleep. The moment when Chillingworth discovers the mark on Dimmesdale’s chest is considered irony of situation. This moment is ironic because some of the townspeople seem to compare the mark with Hester’s scarlet
The narrator has nothing to do in the room but write secretly in her journal and stare at the wallpaper, which ultimately causes her to go insane. The narrator of the story is forced by her husband to stay in the unpleasant
With an unequal marriage and a woman which let her self-expression ruin her, was the short story "The Yellowwallpaper," a great story to talk about the theme of gender. The theme of gender also has to do with how far the story dates back which is in the 1800's, this focusing on how much pain this woman is in with no place to run. Gilman narrates the story to let the reader have a better look at what this woman is feeling and how she reacts to her surroundings. She actually turns to her husband whom which is a doctor and her companion and he dismisses the notion of her mental illness. He sort of traps her in a controlled space by taking her to a secluded house with no human contact besides her sister, Jennie, and himself who both look at her illness in the same way.
Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from depression and how severely her condition is misunderstood by those around her. The setting of the story is in itself a character in the narrator’s story. The old mansion with the yellow wallpaper has many symbols used by the authors to explain the desperation of the narrator’s desperate loneliness. The ironic part of this tale is that her cure of “rest” only pushes the narrator further into her madness. The woman in this story is an ironic symbol of all women in her time, she is unheard and alone in her illness.
A repressed women with a desire to be free and happy. The relation between when the woman in the wallpaper and the narrator when the woman is behind bars symbolizes the narrator and how she is trapped in this tiny room with a husband who controls her every word and actions. He undermines her in almost every way. For example the narrator says on page 590 “I am afraid, but i don't care- there is something strange about that house-I can feel it, I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what i felt was a drought, and shut the window.” This shows how john undermines her fears as just a simple shiver from the window being open when she is trying to explain how she doesn't like the place because shes
It represents imprisonment and this is made clear when the she says, “The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out”. (245) The imprisonment is created from the yellow wallpaper because the Jane repeatedly asks to remove it but isn’t allowed and she is confined to the room she despises due to the stubbornness seen from her husband. You can see Jane slowly descend into her madness with her hallucinations- “The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." (248) “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!