A Bleak, Stark White Scene Opens Julia Leigh 's ' Sleeping Beauty '

“Analyse, evaluate and compare the techniques used to dim the horror of the real life events discussed in the novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and the film Life is Beautiful.”

Marie Howe created an ode for all the females that she had intimate relations with called “Practicing”. It backtracks to middle school as Howe ambiguously states the acts they performed. This poem is organized into ten separate couplet-stanzas without a rhyme scheme or a distinct meter. Her imagery does not contain specific details on the physical attributes of any of the girls or if there was one she really admired. However, the imagery goes into their sexual explorations with one another behind closed doors. By using metaphors and sentence structure Marie Howe creates imagery that is correlated with the form, and syntax that stays consistent with age.

Since her mother paid her little attention and her brothers and sisters were older and had different interests, Clara often felt ignored or overly childish in this grownup family. In fact, her "childhood became a series of repeated attempts to express her own needs and proclivities, to shake off dependence, and to overcome the neglect and ridicule she felt were so often her lot" (Pryor 1987. p,10).

Sexual infidelity is demonstrated through Charlie’s mother Ruth, who has an affair with the local policeman. Before Laura died she had wrote a letter to Jasper informing him how on the nights he did not go up to her window her father barged into her room screaming and hitting her, “my father came to my door and he wasn’t gentle and he wasn’t kind”. She could not take the pain anymore and as Eliza recounts the story to Jasper and Charlie, slow eerie music begins to play in the background. The film shows how on the dark gloomy night Laura climbed the tree and sat there until she dropped. The director uses front on shots with a dark contrast to add to the misery of the event. Another example of sexual abuse is when Laura’s beaten body hangs from a tree limp and lifeless. Fast eerie music begins to play and a front on shot focusing on a branch with Laura’s hanging body in the background giving a sense of mystery to the viewer. At the end of the film the letter Laura wrote to Jasper shows that Laura’s death was connected to the sexual abuse from her

Elsie May walks into the parlor where MR. WINCHESTER is sitting in his tan Alvar Aalto tank chair that he brought back with him when he returned home from Chelsea’s Arms Asylum. Mr. Winchester is a beautifully masculine sixty-five-year-old with silver-gray hair that hangs to his shoulders. He is as kind as a butterfly but hard as a rock when it comes to his loved ones. Mr. Winchester does not look up from his newspaper.

When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the

When the narrator first encounters the girl, his friend's older sister, he can only see her silhouette in the “light from the half-opened door”. This is the beginning of his infatuation with the girl. After his discovery, he is plagued by thoughts of the girl which make his daily obligations seem like “ugly, monotonous, child's play”. He has become blinded by the light. The narrator not only fails to learn the name of his “girl”, he does not realize that his infatuation with a woman considerably older than himself is not appropriate. He relishes in his infatuation, feeling “thankful [he] could see so little” while he thinks of the distant “lamp or lighted window” that represents his girl. The narrator is engulfed by the false light that is his futile love.

Mansfield’s description throughout the narrative is intriguing and captivating, pulling the reader into the drill hall and making them sway to the “oft, melting, ravishing tune” as though they themselves could have been Leila. Moreover, her use of description allows her to create the character of the “fat man” and utilise him to portray the idea that “happiness [doesn’t] last for ever.” Because she describes him as the fat man, who is old and wearing a coat that “looked dusty with French chalk”, she creates an evident contrast between the beautiful characters she initially described. Through this imagery, Mansfield subtly portrays Leila’s fears of losing the beauty of this first ball and emphasises that in fact, beauty doesn’t last. However, Mansfield plunges the reader back in to the dance, such that the almost

In her room, Louise sinks into a comfortable chair and looks out her window. Immediately the image of relaxation seems to strike oddly. Reading this story should

“Later that night when Thomas roller over and lurched into her, she would open her eyes and think of the place that was hers” this proves the point that she cannot even express herself sexually because she does not feel as if she has control in the situation.  Her mind wanders elsewhere, in a place where she is her own master, instead of what is reality. Additionally, the main character’s husband shows some selfish tendencies in the fact that he may not notice his wife’s discontentment with his affection.  However, this may also present the lack of communication between man and wife and therefore may cause a sense of isolation from her husband.

Lucy is clearly the most sexual female of the female characters and this description leads to the reader understanding the inappropriateness of the women being overtly sexual and in some ways them understanding the threats the ‘New Women’ possess. When dying Lucy is described as having a “voluptuous mouth” and her body to be “withering and quivering” once again the ‘New Woman’ is referred to as being very sexual and confident,

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.

As the scenes are being described, remember that Mia is not really awake and walking around, it is just her subconscious. There are two scenes in the movie that express her subconscious state dramatically in their own ways. For example, Mia is wandering the hospital halls in her subconscious state and sees family rushing from the elevator towards the nurses station to ask if Mia and her family are okay. This is when Mia finds out her brother, Teddy, has died. Mia, in shock, runs through the halls crying. The camera is rushing through the busy halls and starts to blur when Mia falls to her knees in heartbreak. Suddenly, the halls are cleared and quiet as Mia sees a white light at the end of the hallway. The empty halls indicates that Mia feels nothing but emptiness and no longer wants to fight to live because she sees the white light, indicating heaven. This all changes when she hears the elevator door open and there is Adam rushing in. In this upcoming scene, Mia follows Adam back to her room. The expression on his face shows that he is in complete shock and is heartbroken. There is a quiet tone in the room as Adam sits down next to Mia and begins to whisper. Adam talks about Mia’s dream of being accepted into Juilliard, and how of an amazing person and cello player Mia is. The camera is steady and goes back and forth between both characters