... symbols to illustrate Louise's circumstance A. Dead husband symbolizes a new life for Louise IV. Chopin uses irony for a unique ending to the story A. Louise dies at her husband's reappearance The oppression of women in the late nineteenth century is the predominant theme in Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour." Through the character of Louise, Chopin is able to illustrate the negative effects of living in a society in which ... change. For instance, we are told that Louise was looking out the window at the "tops of the trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life" (Chopin 635). S...

• Word Count: 802
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... cared so much for them that she even fed them the finest of human foods. Some of which included: roasted flesh, milk, and fine white bread. And, as expected, she would cry if any of them happened to die or get hurt. The Nun is a very dainty and courtly woman. She is even the most proper of eaters. Chaucer went into elaborate detail about just how properly she ... ate. She never let food fall from out of her mouth. She never dipped her fingers too deep in ... the sauce to where she got some sauce on herself. She never, ever dropped a single piece of food while taking it up from her plat...

• Word Count: 654
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... is the one who is usually cooking and cleaning in the house, while she is in the fields. This is not the typical woman characteristic. It is quite the contrary. Celie also broke out of the stereotype, but this happened later in the book, after Shug influenced her. "You a low down dog is what's wrong, I say. It's time to leave you and enter into Creation. And your dead body ... is just the welcome mat I need ... ."(P. 207) This is significant because here she declares her independence from Mr.____. And she is ready to start a new life without him. Celie soon finds she has the talent of m...

• Word Count: 461
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... too much stimulation can make her condition worse. When she writes in her journal, most of her emotions come out on the paper and she tells herself how she really feels. The narrator calls the paper "dead paper" because she knows that she will be the only one reading her own notes. Writing her thoughts down onto paper lets her communicate her emotions that her husband will ... not let her express in words in fear of her condition. When the key character settles into her ... room, she describes the wallpaper in different ways. First ... ...

• Word Count: 1014
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... upon my research I find it hard to believe that she received the death penalty. According to one of the sites I visited she was coerced into a partial confession which was not witnessed or signed or recorded by anyone except for the one interrogating officer. Then it says that she was given a polygraph test by the police shortly after being arrested and passed but it was never ... entered into evidence or even brought up in court. The prosecution painted her as ... they are no different from men. Some would even say that they are smarter and therefore more aware of what they are doing....

• Word Count: 296
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... cattle. Henry has just sold some cattle and has offered to take his wife out into town to celebrate. He goes off to gather the livestock and prepare the wagon for the outing that evening. While Henry is away, a salesman comes to call on Elisa. He realizes that she has a love for her flowers ... seedlings in a pot for the salesman to take. The salesman leaves and Elisa eagerly returns to the house to get ready for her outing with Henry. While Henry and Elisa are making their way into town, she discovers the flower seedlings dumped out on the side of the road. Elisa is devastated by the wa...

• Word Count: 472
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... is a young woman; ready, eager for life, for love...but deadened, and crushed by the machine like quality of the life surrounding her. In the story of an innocent stenographer who supports her sickly, demanding mother, and who decides to marry her materialistic boss as if she were stepping off a cliff in a dream. Helen is stultified by and a mechanized world as read through her eyes. Her ... own assumptions drive a seemingly harmless stenographer to commit murder. The tortured Helen, forever on a quest for ... is realized by understanding one's own self. Neither character was able to f...

• Word Count: 631
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... dominated society and sometimes women suffer because of it. Gilman sets up the story to convey a certain opinion of the repercussions a woman faces in the care of a man. She states right from the beginning that "John is a physician, and perhaps--(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)-- perhaps that is the one reason I do not get well ... his/her interpretation or 'control' over the story. It is this realization of control or the reader's interpretation that is the final block that gives the building that is known as a story,...

• Word Count: 1224
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... cultural practices that we can easily observe throughout other people. People who adapted themselves to believe in follow these cultural practices think that the best thing to do is to get them involved in these kinds of cultural practices. One of the things that we can say that would be weird from people from other cultures to observe can be people's worryness about their ... damage in people. Sometimes, girls who are pretty and have a nice body to show up, believe that they are getting fat and they start to eat less and less until the point that they become really thin, but they don't...

• Word Count: 335
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... beauty and submissive charms Smiled with superior love" (4. 497-498). Since Adam was a man, he believed that Adam was the ultimate creation and image of God Himself. In the Bible, 1 Corinthians notes that a woman's hair is her glory. "But that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering" (1 Corinthians ... English history despite his faulty depictions of women. John Milton was a strong English writer whose writings were very passionate. In Paradise Lost, the author's depiction of women is clear. Milton notes Eve as a woman who is solely beautifu...

• Word Count: 1176
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice, focuses on the structures of exchange as they exist Karen in Shakespeare's play. The play, she argues is told in the rhetoric of the commercial world, even, she notes, in Belmont where life is generally free of direct commercial involvement, but the love alliances forged there are a representation of exchange in the commodity of women. Before examining exchange in the play, Newman takes time to discuss the idea of exchange ... as it relates to anthropology. The first essay Newman names is that of Marcel Mauss who notes that one of the mo...

• Word Count: 772
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... that leaves them unsupported in their development and extremely vulnerable to the excesses of popular culture and to pressure from peer groups." This mismatch may be due to a lack or misunderstanding of the female experience and how the biological events that occur within are simply shaped by her surroundings. Brumberg notes that back in the nineteenth century, beauty imperatives for girls were kept in check by consideration ... of moral character and by cultural mandated patterns of emotional denial and repression. Females during that time period were not ... ...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Graduate

... must be told. Beetle found herself snug as a bug in a dung heap. She slept for warmth, completely dismissing the horrid smell of it. Then a sharp question asked "You girl. Are you alive or dead?" she promptly opened her eyes and was taken in after tell the woman she could do hard work and not eat much. So that's how she ended up as where ... she is. Well the midwife didn't really treat her as an apprentice for she spoke unkindly and forbid that Alyce ... would not make it. When the midwife got there she was thoroughly mad. The husband of the wife said Alyce was more kind and efficient ...

• Word Count: 367
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... memories never existed. She has made by Tyrell and since her past is not truly hers, she is not the real her. Rachel looks down at the photo and puts it back to the piano. The camera focuses again on the photo of the fluffy haired woman. The repetition of the shot of this photo is actually foreshadowing that Rachel is imitating this woman when she lets down her hair afterwards ... hand he feels different with Rachel, after she has saved his life, and on the other, that she is the only person he is like this with. Deckard sits down beside Rachel and there is a close-up of the notes. This...

• Word Count: 892
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Feminism in John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums." At first glance John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" seems to be a story about a woman whose niche is in the garden. Upon deeper inspection the story has strong notes of feminism in the central character Elisa Allen. Elisa's actions and feelings reflect her struggle as a woman trying and failing to emasculate herself in a male dominated society. Elisa is at ... her strongest and most proud in the garden and becomes weak when placed in feminine positions ... such as going out to dinner with her husband. Steinbeck smartly narrates this woman'...

• Word Count: 797
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October 8, 2002 An Awakening in "The Dead" by James Joyce Through a sequence of events that take place one evening, Gabriel Conroy, the protagonist in James Joyce's "The Dead", is transformed from a man on the verge of suffocation, due to his self inflicted ignorance, to a man awakened by the realization of his own mortality. As Rapp states "throughout most of the story it is clear that Gabriel is trapped in his own self-consciousness ... his snow covered galoshes. The symbolism of the snow in "The Dead" differs from one critic to another. "To some it is seen as the symbol of death. Others se...

• Word Count: 429
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... , mythology, and essence. The story revolves around generations, past and present, of a black family in the south. The character of Milkman (Macon Dead jr.) evolves through the descriptions, events, and experiences of others. His parents, Macon Dead sr., and Ruth Foster Dead, represent the symbolic wall, blocking Milkman from his true identity. Many of Milkman's major problems are a direct result of his parent's suffocating mistakes. ... Ruth breast-fed Milkman until he was six years old, hence the ... to Milkman she disturbed his natural process for growth, and ultimately left him fee...

• Word Count: 1122
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... strength to live through the years she spends in Africa. Sofia claims that her ability to fight comes from her strong relationships with her sisters. During Nettie's time in Africa, Samuel notes to her that the Olinka women have a strong relationship between each other. That's how being married to a man which already has other wives make it bearable because of the strong relationships that they ... already have. The most important female relationship is what Celie and Shug have between each other. Shug ... brings out the real Celie. She reveals how Celie is always unable to resist thos...

• Word Count: 1237
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... , myth, and essence. The story revolves around generations, past and present, of a black family in the south. The character of Milkman (Macon Dead jr.) evolves through the descriptions, events, and experiences of others. His parents, Macon Dead sr., and Ruth Foster Dead, represent the wall-blocking Milkman from his true authentic identity. Many of Milkman's major problems are a direct result of his parents suffocating mistakes. ... Ruth breast-fed Milkman until he was six years old, hence the name ... to Milkman she disturbed his natural process for growth, and ultimately left him feeli...

• Word Count: 1145
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... killed by Mr. Wright. "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird, a thing that sang." She used to sing. He killed that, too" (Glaspell 1.1.124). The killing of the bird symbolizes the stifling of Mrs. Wrights voice; the quick removal of her one bit of premarital independence and happiness. When the bird died at the hands of her husband, Mrs. Wright was similarly dead - emotionally - dead on the inside without anything to live for. "She, come to ... think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself...real sweet and pretty, but kind ... ...

• Word Count: 772
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• Grade Level: High School

... , the deceased woman is slathered with a mask of makeup and perfume. She is dressed in one of her most flattering outfits with perfectly matching shoes. The woman's eyelids are closed, but molded to a position that makes her look like she's resting peacefully. Her lips are neither smiling nor frowning. Her hair is primped to perfection. All of this is done to impress. Impress whom? She's dead ... . From the day we are born to well after we die, we"re put under a looking glass that is seen through with a critical eye. Because we are all ... aware of those eyes, we feel like we are forced ...

• Word Count: 733
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... and why she wants freedom in her life. Thoughts of freedom start running through Mrs. Mallard head. In the story the following is said, "She did not stop to ask if it were not a monstrous joy that held her." This demonstrates that now that she has received the news that her husband is dead, this has now brought her joy. Not that she ... ; this is what Mrs. Mallard felt for her husband. As critic Donald F. Larsson states, "Certainly, we are told of the joy she feels with the freedom she finds in her husband's death, but we are not specifically told that she is skeptical of marriage in gen...

• Word Count: 940
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... intact, but like the wallpaper, disturbing patches show through. She states she is trying to follow "that pointless pattern to some kind of conclusion (21). Obviously, she is trying to find some sort of pattern and reach some kind of conclusion about her own life. She eventually notes that the "dim shapes- skulking behind the overlaying pattern are ... getting clearer; they have begun to resemble a woman, stooping down and creeping. The protagonist and the woman in the wallpaper are identical; the woman in the wallpaper is a projection of herself. At the end, in emulation of the wallpape...

• Word Count: 873
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... intact, but like the wallpaper, disturbing patches show through. She states she is trying to follow "that pointless pattern to some kind of conclusion (21). Obviously, she is trying to find some sort of pattern and reach some kind of conclusion about her own life. She eventually notes that the "dim shapes- skulking behind the overlaying pattern are ... getting clearer; they have begun to resemble a woman, stooping down and creeping. The protagonist and the woman in the wallpaper are identical; the woman in the wallpaper is a projection of herself. At the end, in emulation of the wallpape...

• Word Count: 829
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the beginning of time that women were the weaker of the two sexes. Women all over the world have been fighting for equal rights for centuries but the historic stereotype is still stuck. In the US women are allowed to have the same jobs as men, and are, most of time, respected in the same aspect. But, there still is the ... occasional occurrence where women will be laughed at for wanting to do something that may be considered more of a man's job. There are still the ... comments like "Oh, she can't do that, she's not strong enough, she's a woman, that's a man's job." Even in America with...

• Word Count: 336
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School