Oates places beautiful Marilyn Monroe against the background of a used bookstore to accent how foreign the girl-poets take her to be. In the first two paragraphs of Three Girls, Oates describes the Strand Used Bookstore as dark, dingy, unorganized, and unrefined (77). Whereas, later on in the story, Oates describes Marilyn Monroe as the leading lady, attractive, and charming, even though she is dressed in men’s clothing with her blond hair in a braid (78). Even when the girl-poets describe Marilyn Monroe as “more resembling them, then she resembled her Hollywood image,” she seems to be out of place in the Strand (79). The girl-poets wonder, to themselves of course, why the Marilyn Monroe would be browsing through used books, when she could be walking through the Waldorf-Astoria (80).
Blanche Dubois’ arrival at her sister, Stella’s apartment in New Orleans generates complex relationships and anxieties among Blanche, Stella, and her husband, Stanley Kowalski. Although Blanche seems to be broke, she disdains the Kowalskis’ crude abode and criticizes their lifestyle. Brought up as a southern belle, Blanche lived in an elegant estate entitled Belle Reve, married a man she truly loved, and became an English teacher. She lost everything she owned and loved to desire, which eventually “brought her” to New Orleans (70). Blanche, however, still attempts to preserve her appearance through deception, lies, and rejection of reality.
So metaphorically, she is hiding from reality but on a physical level, Blanche avoids light to prevent others from seeing the reality of her beauty that is now being “put out” like light. From the start, Blanche is portrayed as a “moth” [pg. 5] , a creature of darkness, often mistaken for a butterfly, a creature of light, thus building up on the theme of illusion. As a moth cocoons itself to avoid bright light, the colored paper lantern Blanche bought represents her creating a beautiful dream to gloss over the ugly reality (light bulb) that she cannot confront. She is able to manipulate facts and reality, hide the truth and be in control of whom she is.
From the visual techniques used there are many ideas communicated to the audience as we can feel a sense of loneliness, depression, and desperation. Even though she is in a dark world that is hopeless, the small picture of the red leaf indicates that she is clutching onto a small glimmer of hope. The writing with this picture lacks punctuation and has negative connotations to show that she is starting to give up hope. Later on into the book there is a page where the girl is seen standing on a stage with the colours of light and dark juxtaposing with each other, which creates a meaning that, she is surrounded by darkness. The vector lines in this image points to her face, making her the focal point and the composition of the objects are foreign, cluttered together and form negative connotations.
This can be seen with the repetition of words like ‘the’ and ‘and’. It shows the beauty of nature in abundance. She over-exaggerates by using words like ‘gold’ to describe nature. She grew up in Tuscany and all the elements of nature in England couldn’t possibly be foreign to Aurora Leigh. Many other poems are also constantly dwelling on the theme of nature.
Stanley is always telling her what to do and how to do it. Stanley also drinks a lot and has a temper. In the book Blanche is playing music and Stanley doesn’t like it and because of his drinking he makes a bad choice and throws the radio out the window. This makes Stella upset and when Stella is upset Stanley continues to yell and get aggressive with her which makes Stella leave. Once Stella is gone Stanley realizes what he has done and goes to find her, and because Stella is love struck she goes back to him.
Though she does not hide her insecurities as much as Amanda does. She does not put on an act because she is very shy and can be best understood through her body language. Mama observes this behavior in the beginning of the text by explaining “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners homely and ashamed” (297). Maggie is ashamed because of the “burn scars down her arms and legs” (297) from a house fire years ago. The insecurities of Maggie’s character are not just skin deep, much like my own.
Miss Emily is an older woman, which is not particularly someone most people would see as violent. She meets a love interest by the name of Homer Barron. Barron and Emily go on carriage rides through the park routinely. When Emily finds out that Barron is not as serious about their union as she is, she takes it amongst herself to purchase poison that happens to be labeled “For Rats.” What we then see is an example within an example. Southern gothic characters usually posses some type of characteristic that makes them dark and sick- minded.
PATIENT: ALLISON REYNOLDS Personality Traits: Quirky, Strange, Reserved, Sensitive, Enigmatic, Quiet, Eccentric, Peculiar, Discontented, and Aloof. Personality Type: Allison possesses a type C personality. Type C’s are very sensitive and Allison demonstrates that she is indeed sensitive when she pours all the contents of her purse to Andrew and Brian, and when they don’t understand the message she is conveying, she seems to be on the verge of crying, cusses at them, and storms away, and doubles over a bookcase crying. This shows that she is easily hurt at the thoughts of others. Type C’s are also emotionally repressed.
When someone cannot socialize or encounter the same surroundings, they begin to act very talkative and get aggravated easily. For example, when the narrator says, “I get unreasonable angry at John sometimes,” (2). The narrator gets aggravated at everything quickly, such as her husband, the house, her brother’s sister, and that yellow wallpaper. Especially when she says, “I never saw a worse paper in my life,” (3). She is really aggravated with being trapped in the room but projected her feelings toward the