Analysis Of Jeanette Winterson's 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal'

Money, riches, power, and fame are not true happiness. In life I learned that true happiness cannot be bought with those things. True happiness is what truly makes you happy. I have learned these things from celebrities, also from viewing people that I know. By viewing the lives of these people you can tell that they are not happy with their lives. Because they are not happy they feel a great load of depression in their lives, which can sometimes lead to suicide.

The value of participating in life, and society is particularly important and plays a major role in one’s health, and mental state. The two novels from our class display a clear image of the pain and agony you feel after being rejected, and looked upon differently. Stephen Chbosky’s, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower and Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, we witness how characters in both novels try to participate in life, and just want to be accepted like everybody else. However, they all encountered problems as the society refuses to accept them for who they are. They are either picked on or completely disowned and forced to stay away from civilization, and as a result, their mental state begins to decline, which leads to consequences. These consequences

Judy Brady?s passage shared a very similar unappreciated character, she too had learned to deal with rejection by her loved ones, and she still went on with her day to day life. Sandra?s character was ridiculed daily by her brothers, her father, and even her own mother. She managed to put the ridicule aside, and move her life forward. Sandra moved on to become a great respected writer, along with the respect of her family overtime.

In “The Author to Her Book,” Bradstreet is inundated in indecision and internal struggles over the virtues and shortfalls of her abilities and the book that she produced. As human beings we associate and sympathize with each other through similar experiences. It is difficult to sympathize with someone when you don’t know where they are coming from and don’t know what they are dealing with. Similar experiences and common bonds are what allow us to extend our sincere appreciation and understanding for another human being’s situation. In this poem an elaborate struggle between pride and shame manifests itself through an extended metaphor in which she equates her book to her own child.

The essay it's based on the time Didion visited her parents’ home to celebrate her daughter’s 1 year old birthday. Throughout the visit Didion couldn't help but feel resentment to leave her “home”. Didion stated that she came “to dread my husband’s evening call” because she didn’t want to go back to Los Angeles or even be reminded of it (2). Didion wishes she could stay in her “home” where she is completely happy. We find her desperately looking around the house for her past “around every corner, inside every cupboard” she “aimlessly” goes “from room to room” looking for something she once lost and will never get back (2). Didion feels the need to reconnect with her family and, although not stated, Didion longs to go back in time and prevent

If she was free to express her feelings, she wouldn’t have had to shove them aside and try to find other things to occupy her mind with. She finds greatest comfort when she writes, but her husband believes that it is bad for her to do so because it is too stimulating. She makes comments many times expressing how writing makes her feel better, that it would “relieve the press of ideas and rest me” (349) and that she “must say

A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof

Readers who share this same sense of home may be touched be the way Didion connects with them through her use of description. While she does not directly relate her point to the audience it is clearly present. Each element in the essay highlights not only the sense of family that is there but how they influence a person’s perspective and attitude. While one shares in her journey through her past and her visits with her family it brings to mind how one may or may not have this same sense of family to pass on to their family or even have it themselves. This point is summoned in the closing paragraph when Didion herself reflects on this thought.

1. In "We have no 'Right to Happiness'" CS. Lewis claims that the right to happiness" is "chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse." Because Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House does not leave Torvald for another man, the principles upon which C.L. Lewis bases his essay are moot and do not apply. Lewis exhibits a disturbing amount of gender bias, sexism, and stereotyped assumption in his essay, but he might indeed understand that Torvald has emotionally and psychologically abused his wife throughout their marriage.

Young people live life by the day. The process of self discovery begins as a teenager. For some, this could take years. For others, it could happen quickly. Sometimes hardship leads people towards self-discovery. In the book Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, Conrad struggles with his identity; in the past, Conrad was never able to do anything without his brother’s influence. Once his brother drowns, Conrad feels lost without him. In the beginning, middle and end of the book, Conrad goes through the stages of grief, and through this process, Conrad discovers his identity.

Definitions of what a green man is have changed drastically throughout the years. Traditionally green men are seen as figures of fertility and honour, however, in Jeanette Winterson’s The Green Man it is evident that the protagonist is far from this traditional role. A man’s sexuality is very much a large defining factor of his worth but in this text our main male role is stripped of it. His fertile abilities are lost on his lawn as his own wife refuses to copulate with him. This leaves his daughter to be his greatest achievement infertility, but even her creation results in the ultimate demise of his beloved lawn. It is true that the protagonist is a sacrifice from the beginning without a chance to change his predetermined destiny. After fulfilling his duty to sacrifice, fertilize and unfortunately die for the sake of others the green man emerges from the ashes. Being green is not something that can simply be described with adjectives but has rather become a modern day lifestyle in this text. In Jeanette Winterson’s The Green Man, the protagonist creates a modern green man archetype through his oppressed sexuality, his sacrifice and his life’s role in the rebirth cycle.

During the course of a person’s life, a decision is made as to which direction their life should follow. Most people are encouraged by their loved ones to make this choice for themselves. When Kelly Cherry was twelve, she announced to her musically devoted, string quartet violinist parents that she was going to quit piano lessons and become a writer, in response, “[her] mother said that she would rather kill [her] than have [her] turn out like [her] big brother, a beatnik. She ran to the kitchen to get [a] butcher knife” (“Kelly Cherry”). Needless to say, she was not supported in this career path. Throughout the course of her early writing career, she would hear that she “had no talent for writing” (“Kelly Cherry”). Still, she continued to write, occasionally quitting again and again, like a smoker, only to pick it up again (“Kelly Cherry”). Continually she told herself, “You are not a writer” until one day she revised this to, “If you don’t write your books, no one else will” (“Kelly Cherry”).

The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.

Many things are important to us, one of these is being accepted by our society. We all hate to be the outsider or the new kid, because we feel alone and secluded . In “Who Am I This Time?';, Helene Shaw’s job kept her moving to a different town every eight weeks. She became very cold to her

Shel Silverstein didn’t care, he didn’t care if The Sword-Swallower wore a collar, whether the Twistable, Turnable Man was almost unbreakable or if the Skin Stealer made your poor head spin, simply put, he did what he wanted and without question. Shel Silverstein was an American poet, author and songwriter. He won two Grammy Awards and his books have sold over twenty million copies but it was not his accomplishments that made him great, but instead how he achieved them. Silverstein looked to combat social norms and and did so with outright confidence. In modern day the idea of fitting in has become a driving point in our society, people have become afraid to be themselves for fear of becoming a social outcasts, but Shel Silverstein did not conform to the idea of “normal” and instead pushed boundaries and tested limits. Silverstein valued his idiosyncrasies and taught me how to value my own. He lived in his own world, filled with abstract ideas that were seemingly incoherent, but each had a meaning, each word was carefully placed. Silverstein, to me, was a cure-all, an individual who helped me escape from fitting in, and accept myself for who I am not what others want be to be.