A Gravestone Made of Wheat

State how marriage is presented in the stories, “Desiree’s Baby” and “The Story of an Hour.”

Authors make use of details or patterns, portions to some prior story to add depth and texture to the story, bring out a theme, lend irony to a statement, and to play with the reader’s deeply ingrained knowledge of fairy tales.

In this marriage, Janie is viewed more as a possession to Jody rather than his wife. Janie’s freedom of speech and expression is suppressed by Jody (Hurtson 77-85). Due to this marriage, Janie’s hopes of love were shattered once again.

Characters are a vital element of fiction; without them, a story falls apart because the readers are forced to only focus on its plot, setting, or other aspects of fiction. Characterization is the process in which the author describes the distinctive nature or features of a particular character. A character is often characterized by their own dialogue, actions, thoughts, appearance, and interpretation by the author or by other characters in the story. Through these methods, an author can really bring their characters to life for the reader. In “My Kid’s Dog,” Ron Hansen uses these methods to bring all his characters to life. He portrays the strained relationship an owner has with his ‘daughter’s’ pet dog, and the difficulties overcoming his hardships. Through methods of characterization, Hansen unveils the friction between the dad and the dog and allows the reader to empathize with them, incorporating humor throughout the story, as well.

Author Thomas Foster thoroughly examines the overall concept of characters in his book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor.” He discusses round and flat character and how this impacts the eventual outcome of the characters, themselves. Although all characters are vital and add their own value to the plot, it just so happens that certain characters are more significant than others. This results in the more minor character suffering more hardships and in many cases dying in the story. This part of Foster’s book brought up many similarities to the novel “The Book Thief.”

Characterization is an important component in short story writing. In the short story "Lamb to the Slaughter" written by Roald Dahl, we are introduced to Mary Maloney, a pregnant housewife who recently found out that her husband is going to leave her. Mary develops into a very complex character as the events of the short story unfold. Mary is a typical housewife, waiting on her husband hand and foot. She loves him dearly, but as the short story unfolds, we see that he does not share the same feelings. Mary, unable to handle the rejection, lashes out and kills her husband. We then see Mary’s character transform before our eyes and the once loving, dutiful housewife becomes a very devious, manipulative and cold hearted character. She manages

In his collection of short shorties, O’Brien writes in a style that is very vivid and often times causes the audience to find themselves accepting the events and details of these stories as the truth. O’Brien contrasts the truth to fiction by reminding the audience that within these short stories, the details are not the truth and are there to demonstrate the human emotions that can not be communicated as absolute facts.

Short stories have fully developed themes but appear significantly shorter and less elaborate than novels. A similar theme found in short stories “Winter Dreams” written by Scott F. Fitzgerald and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner included the social and environmental influences that encouraged and controlled the character’s life and decisions. In “Winter Dreams”, the main protagonist-- Dexter-- fell into a fixation over a young, whimsical blueblood, Judy Jones. His obsession led him to believe that Judy Jones reciprocated his feelings for her, leaving him bare and mortal-- despite prior beliefs. Following her father’s death, Miss Emily fell into a dark obscurity due to the pressure and compulsion of having to carry on the honorable family name. While using a unique point of view (first person peripheral), “A Rose for Emily” followed a mysterious and desirable woman named Miss Emily as her hometown tried to understand her peculiar ways and began to find her disgraceful. By comparing and contrasting these two literary pieces, a similar organization-- including the writers’ purpose and themes-- should become clear. By using literary devices-- such as point of view, dramatic irony, detail, and figurative language-- Scott F. Fitzgerald and William Faulkner conducted two short stories similar in aim and reasoning, probable for contrasting and comparing elements within the parallel writings.

Many authors of the short story like to focus on the idea of death and or darkness. These traits carry big messages that don’t often require a lot of page space to explain. This is overwhelming important in the genre of short stories when authors have very little page space to work with. At least one of these traits can be seen in the works of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe with The Fall of the House of Usher’s, Nathaniel Hawthorne with The Birthmark, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper.

She learns that her parents are planning an arranged marriage for her. It has been centuries since the practice of arranged marriages for political or personal gain had been outlawed.

Marriage: Despite her independent streak Skeeter is constantly pressurized to marry, is often made to get ready by her Mother and look beautiful for her dates with so called handsome well established men. The marriages of various characters in the movie, Skeeter’s parents, her friends, Minny, Stuart’s parents are all nearly shown with problems that are intertwined with gender related power

With two completely different settings and backgrounds, most people wouldn’t associate the book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie and the short story “A Walk to the Jetty” by Jamaica Kincaid. But one aspect of their way of writing ties there styles together, which is the way they use their minor characters. Dai Sijie and Jamaica Kincaid use minor characters to help develop the major characters by teaching them important life lessons. The authors use the minor characters such as Luo from Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Annie’s parents, especially her mum, from “A Walk to the Jetty” to introduce new perspectives to the major characters which in turn changes the main characters’ attitudes and decisions.

She smiled at the sweet memories she shared with her mother and beamed with excitement thinking about her future with Tristan. Living an eternity with him would be everything she had ever dreamt of; pure, bright, and blissful. However, this was everything she did not have. Isolde was trapped within the walls of Ireland’s kingdom, tethered by her promise to the King. According to the Church, marriage exemplified loyalty, but to Isolde, it brought her closer to suffering.

Bloom & Gleed (2010) critic that Helena must undertake a series of interesting but unusual activities (travel, linguistic magic, the bed trick) if she is to gain the ceremony of formal marriage. To achieve her goals, she must

With Jorgen Tesman, Ibsen portrays a husband who succumbs less obviously to society's expectations of a good marriage, but who is nonetheless always quietly encouraging his wife to act more appropriately. Elizabeth Hardwick even suggests that