Feminist Criticism on “The Awakening” Kate Chopin wrote “The Awakening”, to show people of the nineteenth century society and the future generations, how hard women struggled to overcome their conflicting emotions and the oppression of society’s tradition to become more than just personal property for men to control. Feminist criticism portrays women in literature as the most important forms of ‘socialization’. All throughout “The Awakening”, Kate Chopin shows examples of how women should and should not act in society, in their homes, and with their husbands. In Edna Pontellier’s adopted society, women are viewed more valuable when they conform into the mother-woman role. The mother-woman role is another form of men control, because it dictates how women should idolize their children, worship their husbands, and honor their isolated but inferior positions.
However, she eventually learns when Miss Sullivan attempted to explain to her what “w-a-t-e-r” was – a “wonderful cool something that was flowing over [her] hand”. This was how Keller was able to learn that each object had a name. In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, Douglass’ mistress had taught him when she was kinder. Now that she is cruel, she forbids him to learn. As Douglass puts it, “nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper”.
The most important clue that explains Mrs. Mallard’s unpleasant marital life can be established when Chopin tells the reader that Mrs. Mallard, “saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely and she opened and spread her-arms-out-to-them-in-welcome”(16). Chopin demonstrates that Mrs. Mallard understood the significance of her doomed marriage only after she received the news of her husband’s railroad accident that led
This even caused a chain reaction and made her friends taunt her, attack her heritage, and make her ashamed of her own culture. She began to shut out her Arabic side. 2. Education is the most important subject in Asfahani’s essay because she concludes by saying, “Education is the key to understanding”. When her brother told his mother of the discrimination in his life, she went to his school and educated his peers.
Antoinette has to endure insults such as “Go away white cockroach” which further compounds the unforgiving nature of the Negros where she lives. Antoinette faces the brunt of the racial discrimination the most as her mother seems to favour Pierre, Antoinette’s younger brother, over her. During the beginning of the novel, Antoinette has a terrible nightmare and awakes crying loudly. Instead of offering appropriate consolation to her child, Antoinette’s mother sighs and says, “You were making such a noise. I must go to Pierre, you’ve frightened him.”
Women faced economic social and freedom of rights barricades. Men's interests and efforts were towards the important people; themselves. We see this when the narrator is genuinely concerned about something strange in the house. John shows no empathy or support towards his own wife. Alternatively john responds by telling her it "was a draught, and shut the window" (Gilman 34).
With the guidance of her religious and courageous mother Dolores, and the guidance of her teacher Mr. Watts, she learns many lessons and matures greatly, ultimately becoming a strong woman. Mr. Watts reads a novel by Charles Dickens called Great Expectations to Matilda’s class, which impacts her isolated childhood life on the island. Lloyd Jones explores opposing forces, such as family and literature, parent and teacher and white and black to emphasize the strong conflict between characters, ultimately affecting Matilda’s experiences. Matilda matures immensely due to opposing ideologies and learns many valuable lessons. The conflict between family and literature is due to disagreements about beliefs in fictional characters, religion, and the importance of family, thus making the two ideologies clash unavoidably.
Negative Connotations Insecurity, misperception, the use of words in a certain context and the important connotations that these words evoke are issues deeply discussed in Emily Bernard’s essay “Teaching the N-Word” in the book The Best American Essays edited by Lauren Slater. The overall theme of Bernard’s essay seems to be the importance of the connotations that certain words evoke within people. The main character is a professor that feels the need to demonstrate her importance as a professor as well as a person because of one specific word. She assigns her students a reading that deals with this word, which is one of the most racially offensive words in the English language. This word is the “nigger” which was originally created to dehumanize African American people.
He showed racism by disclaiming the child because it was mixed, and sending his wife and the baby away because he did not think she was white. However, at the end of the story a letter that Armand’s mother wrote to his father stated, “Night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery” (Chopin). Armand was thinking the whole time that his wife was the
And I will explain similarities and differentiation about The Picture by Nawal Al Sadawi and Her by Titis Basino. The similarities from The Picture by Nawal Al Sadawi and Her by Titis Basino is both of the stories from the author’s sex, the author are woman that represent about the man. In both of the story man have a bad attitude. The second similarity is about woman as a victim, because in The Picture, a maid is a victim from her employer. We can know when Narji see her father as an employer to her maid has a relationship with her father.