A Doll 's House And Ghosts

Sontag, Susan. "1." Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978. 8-17. Print.

What is in an illness? Is it just a physical ailment or abnormality? Well, in real life it may, but the presence of disease in literature seems to symbolize a lot more than what meets the eye. This is what Thomas C. Foster brings up in Chapter 24 of his work How to Read Literature like a Professor. Essentially, the chapter examines the importance of disease in literature from a symbolic standpoint.

The personification of the cough shows that it is such a constant presence in the family’s life that it almost acts as a family member. The description of the cough behaving “like a child” both makes the reader view the cough as a member of the author’s family and implies that the author does not view the cough as necessarily malignant. However, the cough is a nuisance much like a little kid is a nuisance because it is “always hungry” and “demand[ed] attention.” The cough being “always hungry” makes the reader think of a little kid wanting food rather than a lung disease that forces the father to constantly cough and the cough “demand[ing] attention” makes the reader think of a pesky child rather than the constant sounds of the father coughing. These descriptions fit in with the personification of a child and make the reader see the cough as more of a helpless thing that needs to be taken care of rather than insidious and evil. The personification of the cough as a child also acts as if the author sees the cough as a part of the family, both emphasizing its constant presence and the author’s almost benign view of the cough.

Laurie Halse Anderson’s historical fiction novel Fever 1793 takes place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when the Yellow Fever epidemic is flooding through the city. The novel is focused around Matilda or as she is called in the book Mattie Cook, and her family. Mattie is faced with many difficulties throughout the novel, including sickness, death, loss, and learning how to be independent. By using personification and descriptive word Anderson creates the theme that fear can cause people to mature or act differently in situations. At the start of the sickness spreading, (pages 68-69 ) Mattie’s mother Lucile is sick in bed with, what they were told was “just a virus”.

“I jolted awake. My sheets were soaked through with sweat, blood, and the foul-smelling black substance that marked a victim of yellow fever. Yellow fever,” despite her desperate cries for mercy, yellow fever struck young Matilda Cook with its evil hand, along with thousands of other unfortunate victims. An unpredictable future haunted the families of Philadelphia as this unbearable sickness slithered in between their homes. In the novel Fever, Laurie Halse Anderson described the fictional epidemic that occurred in 1793 to the citizens of Pennsylvania. She passionately painted the picture with blended colors of pain, perseverance, and hope. Despite unbearable pain, the protagonist pressed on with strength and hope. While her character certainly deserves admiration, Matilda Cook is not the only strong character in this story, her friends Eliza and Nathaniel share some of her inspiring traits as well as some of their own.

Foster explains this idea through multiple literary examples such as novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Dombey and Son, Time of the River, and even more. A central theme they all have in common is that all the main characters in the novels were described as being delicate, fragile, and having a sickly appearance. These books embody the picturesque component of a literary disease. All the patients are considered “beautiful”, in the sense that they are wasting away on the inside yet, the appearance clearly displays the harshness and suffrage they are going through. The second most important point is making sure the disease has a mysterious origin. Foster uses the works of Emily Bronte to showcase that sometimes, diseases come out of nowhere and the mysterious factor makes it more realistic because it signifies the dramatic effects the disease has on many people including the victim. One disease that fits this description is AIDS/HIV. Foster says that the fact that the victim does not know he or she has HIV until it is too late offers many symbolic interpretations of their

In the short story, Fever Dream, Bradbury creates an image of a sterile environment through words such as “fresh, clean, laundered” and “newly squeezed”, Bradbury also describes the ability to hear subtle sounds such as “the toilet gargling”, “rain tap the roof” and “sly mice run”. These images portray a healthy, pure atmosphere that reflects the boy and presents that his “sickness wasn’t too bad” and foreshadows a sickness that will come. Bradbury presents the young

The author uses description through the story of the surviving girl to convey the symptoms and side effects of the plague. For instance, “The skin grew a deep gold, the whites of the eyes turning brilliant yellow.” The author uses this imagery to depict how the virus turns the skin and eyes yellow, and the beauty and horror of it. By explaining the look of the side effects instead of saying just the skin turned yellow the author goes beyond blandness and goes

The main character, McMurphy, represents ideas of sexuality, freedom, self-determination. Nurse Ratched represents ideas of sexual repression, authoritarianism, and conservation. Billy Bibbit’s behavior represents and shows the influence and effects that guilt has on people. Ruckly, is a chronic patient that suffers from having too much electroshock therapy, and in his mental state holds a “Jesus Christ” pose, arms out forming a cross. He cannot move unless the “nails” are removed from his hands. The Aides Warren and Williams represent oppression and the unfairness that was to colored people back in the day. How this is represented is the patients use slang towards them and call them “boy.” When the Aides speak they use incorrect grammar and slang. Also due to the oppression and unfairness that they have dealt with all their lives they are very bitter and cruel people. They abuse the patients behind Nurse Ratched’s back and are constantly taunting and teasing them, doing nothing to help the patients already corrupted mental state. Finally, when the Nurse is being choked, the Aides, fed up with doing the same amount of work and getting paid less, and having to obey everything Nurse says, just watch and let it happen behaving almost pleased about the

The author chose diction to portray the husband as a controlling man to represent the inequality women felt in marriages in the nineteenth century. John, the husband and physician of the sick woman, downplayed the severity of his wife’s illness which, made her illness intensify.

In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the author Ken Kesey 1.enthralls the reader’s attention by displaying events of 2.diminished 3.humanity all throughout the book. This book revolves around the idea that women may be a threat to the masculinity of mental ward patients. The manipulation that occurs within the ward has do with making other characters betray one another and reveal their shame. The manner in which the dominant characters attack the other 's’ “manhood” demonstrates their methods for manipulating the inferior characters under their control. The 4.diverse types of minority groups become 5.conspicuous as the author reveals the 6.inclement and 7.sadistic character, Nurse Ratched, the stories antagonist, , who runs the ward with 8.morbid intentions to 9.desiccate the courage of the people around her. The power in which she portrays is10. ample to the point it becomes 11. flagrant. Her choice of words and background knowledge on the patient 's weaknesses, 12.engender her ability to control people within the ward using insinuation. Although she claims that her actions are in favor for everyone she has contact with within the ward, they are just 13.facades in which 14.covert her manipulation. Throughout the novel, the power of emasculation was a common implement in which controlled the ward, dismayed the courage of many patients and

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, portrays a young married woman, Nora, who plays a dramatic role of deception and self-indulgence. The author creates a good understanding of a woman’s role by assuming Nora is an average housewife who does not work; her only job is to maintain the house and raise the children like a stereotypical woman that cannot work or help society. In reality, she is not an average housewife in that she has a hired maid who deals with the house and children. Although Ibsen focuses on these “housewife” attributes, Nora’s character is ambitious, naive, and somewhat cunning. She hides a dark secret from her husband that not only includes borrowing money, but also forgery. Nora’s choices were irrational; she handled the

The enforcement of specific gender roles by societal standards in 19th century married life proved to be suffocating. Women were objects to perform those duties for which their gender was thought to have been created: to remain complacent, readily accept any chore and complete it “gracefully” (Ibsen 213). Contrarily, men were the absolute monarchs over their respective homes and all that dwelled within. In Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, Nora is subjected to moral degradation through her familial role, the consistent patronization of her husband and her own assumed subordinance. Ibsen belittles the role of the housewife through means of stage direction, diminutive pet names and through Nora’s interaction with her morally ultimate

The author Henrik Ibsen used the play to elaborate on the irony of the 19th century culture of restriction of individual freedom and excessive adherence to ‘societal norm’ at all cost without paying attention or having recourse to the core values and norms that brings about individual happiness and freedom. Torvald Helmer tried to elucidate the abnormality of seeking individual freedom instead of societal norm when he inquired from his wife; Nora “…And you don't consider what people will say”. The society in Ibsen’s “A Doll House” is seen higher than the individual person, for one to fit in he or she must strictly adhere to what the society demands and not what the individual wants. Nora was quick to express her frustration on the demands of the society when she replied Dr. Rank thus “What do I care about tiresome Society?”. Even the eating of Macaroons was also forbidden by Torvald and Nora’s Father, Dr Rank could not hide his feeling upon the sight of Macaroons at Torvalds house when he inquired from Nora “What, macaroons? I thought they were forbidden here”, Nora who is also held by the claws of societal conformity had to lie to justify the possession of macaroons. The irony was played out when the same Dr. Rank enjoyed the macaroons after Nora placed it in his mouth. Ibsen’s setting of the play also portrays a society where a woman cannot be seen to go against not only the orders of her

Macaroons: nora ! Nora! Please don’t leave me and go… why did she leave me half eaten? what is going to happen of me now!! Torvald detests me, he was always against Nora eating me………why did it have to be me?