Analysis Of Mad Shadows

Families can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some family is everything, just knowing that someone is there for you during a personal crisis to help you and provide you with love is comforting. However, at the same time a family can be heartless and relentless providing you with no comfort, instead just pain and misery. We all can agree that families shape our development and how we view the world. From childhood our thoughts and actions are shaped based on experiences from a sibling or parent that went through them. However, the influence of a family could be positive or negative, whether it is showing us the right side or perhaps making the same mistakes. In literature many writers have been influenced by their families two great examples are “A Brother’s Murder” by Brent Staples and “My father’s Life” by Raymond Carver, both writers express in great detail how families have shaped and affected them as individuals.

Carrie hugged her and Louise said “The candy are in the top drawer, help yourself whenever you want”(Dubus 163). Louise finally felt free and accepted. Later, Carrie encouraged Louise to lose weight. Louise agreed. During her weight-loss diet, Louise felt miserable and wished she could be herself again as she was happier then. Louise lost weight and is treated differently because of her weight loss. When Louise returned home after her weight loss, she is received much more positively. Her father no longer looked at her with pity and her mother and relatives reacted approvingly towards her.:...at the airport her mother cried and hugged her and said again and again: You're so beautiful...For days her relatives and acquaintances congratulated her, and the applause in their eyes lasted the entire summer...(DuBus166-169). Louise started to see a young man named Richard who worked in her father’s firm. Eventually they got married and Louise became pregnant and started to gain weight during her pregnancy; and continued to gain weight after she gives birth. Her mother and husband begin to disapprove of her. Louise's husband, Richard, begins to draw away from her emotionally and argued with her about her weight gain. He would say things like “You’re gaining weight, it’s not all water either is fat”(Dubas 170).Louis, begins to remember the satisfaction she got while eating in secret. She felt in her heart that her husband only loved her for her appearance but she didn’t care

Further, when Blais describes Louise and Lanz as “ill-fated as the other”, a clear element of foreshadowing of the suffering and resent they will develop for one another is firmly established. This foreshadowing is realized later in the novel as Louise and Lanz have been together for a fair increment of canonical time. Their relationship, though lacking in substance, has been quite stable. However, in a scene where Lanz is sleeping, Louise enters the room, only to see her husband fully dressed in all his elegance. Louise saw “Lanz, whose nails were always manicured and whose shoes were always polished, had fallen asleep fully dressed, in all his offensive perfection. Confronted with this, her own image, Louise squirmed in disgust.” (Blais 54) The resent that was foreshadowed early in the novella is completely realized. As Blaise uses Louise’s character realization that her husband 's image and her own image disgust her, she expertly suggests a key theme. Blais enhances on one of Mad Shadows’ fundamental concepts; the fact that love based in superficiality and false notions of love is doomed to fail, and will only lead to suffering and pain.

Louise is a lady that taught Billie Jo’s father at night school (which he had been attending to have as a backup plan in case the farm failed). Louise represents the “light at the end of a dark tunnel”, the hope, that people look for during times when all is lost— when they are in a dark tunnel. The way that Louise helps and brings hope is through her actions and deeds. Firstly, she helps the morale of the family by bringing happiness in Billie Jo’s father, which seems to boost his confidence and joy since the tragic death of Billie Jo’s mother. Secondly, she helps the farm by buying Billie Jo’s father a new mule to assist on the farm, “Daddy bought a second mule with Louise’s help.” (226) Not only Louise’s actions, but Billie Jo’s and her father’s actions are also showing that hope has been restored. Billie Jo is now starting to forgive herself and is beginning to find happiness and joy for the first time since the death of her mother, which she thinks she indirectly caused. This is a form of hope in itself, because it is once again livening the mood of the characters. She shows this by playing the piano, which she had not played since the death, “…and I stretch my fingers over the keys, and I play.” (227) Not only this, but her dad is also finishing the pond to house fish that he had been working on since Ma’s death. This

All families have certain levels of craziness. The relationships between the members are honest and appreciative of creativity. Families have different actions and beliefs towards particular subjects. In a story by Sarah Vowell, she describes growing up with her father who was very political and had a passion for firearms. The environment she grew up in made her the person she is today. Mary Ann Cooper had a personal story that shows how her perspective changed because of her family. All family and personal crises are resolved by strong family bonds.

Given these points, Claudette’s exposure to St. Lucy has made her confined on the way she talked and acted unlike before when she was wild, exuberant and carefree. She changed from overturning dresser drawers to the point that her own mother couldn’t even recognize her. As a end result, she cared more about her appearance and she started to filter her actions and words. Therefore, St. Lucy had stripped away Claudette’s personality and her culture identity, replacing both of them with set expectations that were placed onto her.

The sense of being “free” and “independent” were nothing more than imaginations. They could have hoped to be things of such, but society has limited them to be caring wives and mothers instead. Mrs. Mallard has been compelled to follow the life course that society has set for her. In a society where holding a specific position in a household is the “norm,” one may tend to live in a hypocritical world full of lies in order to be segregated from society. Louise struggles to endure the confines of society in the 19th century that has limited her individuality. In the story, her sister, Josephine, took great care to tell Louise of her husband’s death. Josephine “veiled hints that revealed in half concealing,” which exemplifies that women were seen as fragile and sentimental in this time period. Furthermore, when Mrs. Mallard isolates herself in a room to deal with her inner emotions, her sister pleads her to come out, insisting that she will make herself ill if she refuses too. The way Josephine presents herself as worrisome and thoughtful portrays that women were

Dubus’s theme of conformity is conveyed throughout the story by his descriptive diction and use of mood. From the very first time we hear of Louise, the author’s specific word choice helps to convey the story’s uncomfortable and somewhat negative nature: “he was drunk and jammed his tongue into her mouth” (Dubus). The use of the word “jammed” indicates a negative connotation and that it was an unpleasant experience. Louise conforms to the “standard” of having relationships and doesn’t pull away, but simply “lets it happen”. Furthermore, after Louise undergoes a drastic weight loss, the author conveys a change to a happier and more pleasant mood by his use of diction: “She warmly recalled the surprised and congratulatory eyes of her relatives” (Dubus). Whereas in the past Louise was looked down upon by her relatives, she is now looked at in a congratulatory manner which she recalls “warmly”.

Louise Mallard is the wife to Brentley Mallard. Mrs. Mallard was born with a heart condition. She always had to be careful of what she let upset her. Mrs. Mallard received the news of her husband’s railroad accident from her sister Josephine and her husband’s best friend Richard. The irony within the story is that Mrs. Mallard passed away from being so excited and overjoyed about her husband’s death. She pretended to feel sorrow and grief while around Josephine and Richard. They tried to be gentle with the words of her husband’s passing because they knew that her heart was fragile and weak. Mrs. Mallard

Jean Louise was able to gauge the reaction of one of the mob members by making a personal connection with him about his son. She succeeded in getting through to this individual, Mr. Cunningham, by saying, “I go to school with your boy. I go to school with Walter; he’s a nice boy. Tell him ‘hey’ for me won’t you?”(174.6) thus bonding with him over his son. For Jean Louise to figure out how to personalize with an almost stranger is very impressive for a girl of her age. She was very comforting though the man she was talking with was going to try to kill her father. This proves that her social and societal skills are very mature and necessary for the continuation of the

Immediately afterwards, George leaves Louise because “He had wanted more than anything else to talk to some man” (Anderson, pg. 54). He discards the idea that Louise could be

When Louise was married, it probably was the time when it was the norm to be a subservient wife to your husband. In "Girl" it was the norm to be a subservient daughter. Both of them were bound within cultural and social norms just as Chopin stated that "...men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature" (49). After learning of her husband's death, Louise later thinks to herself that finally there would be "no powerful will bending hers" which confirms that her husband does control her (49). Meanwhile, in Kincaid's "Girl", the whole text consists of oral instructions told in an assertive manner on how the girl should do certain tasks to be accepted as a proper girl in their society (355). Furthermore, Kincaid's whole text seems to be a dialogue but there are only two lines in which the girl responds: "but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school" and "but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread" (355, 356); When she did respond, she was either ignored or reprimanded. In conclusion, these two characters had a person in their lives who made them repress who they really are just so that they would be socially

From the opening it is mentioned that Louise has heart trouble, so everything has to be told to her in the calmest, most sudden matter in order to prevent accidents. Her weak heart can be seen as a symbol of the oppresing situation she finds herself in. “She carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory,” downstairs as if she had triumphed over her previous state of oppression; however, she did not know that there was something there, something that would take her freedom away. Consequently, when she saw Brently Mallard enter, she died of heart disease “of the joy that kills.” Furthermore, this event was ironic since her death was caused by the understanding of the unbearable impositions over her life that came with having a husband rather than of

A Picture of the Shadows: A Discussion of How Chiaroscuro Illustrates Remembering and Forgetting in In the Skin of a Lion

Symbolism in “The Story of an Hour” In the the short story, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, she uses symbolism to show the joy and pleasure Louise privately feels now that she is an independent woman. Chopin opens the story with “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death” (Chopin). This sentence alludes to Mrs. Mallard as being a frail woman with heart problems, who loves her husband very much. Throughout the story, we realize this is not the case.