Analysis of South of the Slot by Jack London Essay

Throughout the novel, love and the seek for personal happiness have been prevalent as Jamie suffers no regret from separating from her first two husbands who have both failed to provide her genuine consideration. In the time setting, the men’s disregard of Janie would be

He is the reason for the prosperity of Eatonville, he is hope, an envied and intimidating figure for the colored folks there and Janie is his wife. In reality, behind closed doors, it is not like that. He is oppressive towards her and hinders her from being the blossoming flower she always wanted to be. As tis passage develops, Janie’s opportunity to once again blossom eventually occurs through his death. “Poor Jody!”

Different events, positive and negative, changed his thoughts and helped him become more mature, and a responsible person. Watching his home going to the work made him realize he should do something in his life. Once he started working, he learned to be respectful and reliable even if it took a while for him to change. Once he became more familiar with Penny, she starts to trust him. She starts to give more responsibility. With that in mind, the accident that Penny had changed everything. It ended the relationship between him and Kentucky. However, he moved on without much difficulty. At the end, he was still thinking about his father's words and what he said about the white boys. He never forgot him. Perhaps, the father also had a positive effect on

Janie, the main character, marries three times throughout the novel. Her marriages do not contain unconditional love and because of this, do not last. Her first husband, Joe Starks, belittles Janie as a person including her intellect. "Somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves." (119). Joe shows his dominance over Janie by being the breadwinner in the relationship. Janie’s next marriage is with a man named Joe Starks. He tries to show his dominance over Janie by controlling her. “Janie! "Come help me move dis manure pile befo’ de sun gits hot. You don’t take a bit of interest in dis place. ‘Tain’t no use in foolin’ round in dat kitchen all day long…" (42). Joe belittles the

At the same time, however, Janie begins to confuse this desire with romance. Despite the fact that nature’s “love embrace” leaves her feeling “limp and languid,” she pursues the first thing she sees that appears to satisfy her desire: a young man named Johnny Taylor (Hurston 11). Leaning over the gate’s threshold to kiss Johnny, Janie takes the first step toward her newfound horizon. Nanny sees this kiss and declares Janie’s womanhood. She wants Janie to marry Logan Killicks, a financially secure and well-respected farmer who can protect her from corruption. The marriage of convenience that Nanny suggests is “desecrating … [Janie’s] pear tree” because it contradicts her ideal vision of love (Hurston 14). Because she did not have the strength to fight people in her youth, Janie’s grandmother believes that Janie needs to rely on a husband in order to stay safe and reach liberation. Ironically, Janie’s adherence to Nanny’s last request suppresses her even more because it causes her to leave behind her own horizon.

In hopes for a better relationship, Janie moves away with a person who was encompassed with a more idealistic marriage. Joe encountered Janie, telling her that he was on his way to success, a higher social status. These words sparked Janie, and reasured her that she did want a more “peach tree” like marriage. A marriage that was perfect, that was full of love. Consequently, Janie and Joe cultivated a love for each other, yet this was not exactly what she imagined. Janie was glued to Joe, she was treated as if she was an object. A key attribute of Joe’s is jealousy, he is persistently perturbed that other men are glancing at Janie. Joe makes this clear as he informs,” “Naw, Jody, it wasn’t because Ah didn’t have no sympathy. Ah had uh lavish

("Mary realized the letter effectively closed the door on her college aspirations. She had already completed sixteen hours of college credits and would get no closer toward graduation."pg.17) They both are loving and supporting to their kids and wanted the best by trying to get them to avoid the violence they had around their neighborhood. But without their Mothers guide they couldn’t follow the right path growing up. Joy gets married but has to end up leaving Bill due to his drug addiction and violent abuse. Soon after, she meets and marries Westly and has two children with him. Westly dies so Joy ends up moving back in to the Bronx with her family. Marys' husband dies when Moore was young. They were both similar because they lived in Baltimore and had to raise their boys without a father figures. Mary responds cruelly when she discovers that Wes is managing drugs, vindictively flushing a great many dollars of medications that Wes intended to sell down the can. Moore's dismissal of Riverdale and poor scholastic exhibitions puts a critical strain on his association with his mom,

As William is first being introduced in the story, the author includes that William is married and has a daughter. William would love nothing more than to spend as much time with his family as possible but his job requires that he travels often and he is said to be an “obsessive-compulsive workaholic” (Mays 55). However, during his interaction with his wife, Marie, prior to his departure, he is conflicted between going to the airport and staying in bed with his wife. As she lays in bed, she entices him to stay by make sexual gestures at him and he even begins to engage her. He ultimately decides to proceed his salutations and makes his way to his daughter’s room. Not only does William loves his family, he thinks lovely things of them. For example, he thinks that his daughter is perhaps the “most logical person on the planet” (Mays 57). If William did not have a strong sense of family, he would have simply left Marie and Grace, his daughter without saying goodbye, but he made sure that they knew he was leaving and he

When you look at an example like this one, you start to think whether or not these upper class people believed in their own morals and if they even had any. But one thing is for sure, such arrogant actions only go a short way until they come back to haunt you. Because Mrs. Van Hopper was so blinded by her own self and worried so much about what was going on in other people's lives, she had lost her attention from her companion friend, which let to a love affair between the narrator and Mr. Maxim de Winter.

Willy treated people poorly which in turn his children learnt to do. For instance, Willy was married to Linda but went ahead to have another woman. He had an affair with another woman because he was not satisfied with his marriage. His poor treatment of his wife misled his sons to see it as acceptable to be dishonest. They in turn, viewed women as inferior objects of use.

control over their identity, Jack London's short story, "South of the Slot," exhibits naturalistic elements to propose that mankind has little to no choice in the matter. The protagonist, Freddie Drummond, begins exploring the slums of San Francisco for research purposes but gradually becomes stuck choosing between his life as a professor at the university and as a working-class union member in the ghetto. Jack London employs vivid characterization, dramatic irony, and a setting ridden with social conflict in "South of the Slot" to bring awareness to how the environment one lives in has an inevitable impact on whom one becomes.

But the fluidity of interior life turns poisonous precisely because it is suppressed. All of it comes back to the double-edged sword of patriarchy and capitalist industrial farming, embodied by Larry. Ginny and Rose are "trying to figure out how to understand him better. I [that is, Ginny] feel like there's treacherous undercurrents all the time. I think I'm standing on solid ground, but then I discover that there's something moving underneath it, shifting from place to place. There's always some mystery. He doesn't say what he means."(104). From Larry, it spreads to all the other characters, like Ginny and Ty: "We had spent our life together practicing courtesy, putting the best face on things, harboring secrets."(260) In the end, nobody can be trusted, the poison influences everbody.

The book I selected to read during this semester is the literary classic The Call of the Wild, a 1903 novel by award-winning author Jack London. I chose to read this story because it is a classic novel and the heroic tone of the novel appealed to me. The novel tells of an initially pampered dog, Buck, and the progression of his tendency to revert to the inner instincts of fierce violence and extreme competition instilled in him. In the process, Buck goes through several different masters before finally landing with the right one. The Call of the Wild is made interesting by the literary devices used in the novel, the simple and robust tone used by London, and the process that the protagonist Buck undergoes in reverting back to his

Even in her state of anger she cannot help but once again be the restrained and subdued one in their relationship. Despite all of the happiness she has found with Rochester she still cannot bring herself to stay in a relationship in which she sacrifices part of herself, because she doesn’t know how to reconcile her need feel like she belongs and is taken care of while at the same time remaining uncorrupted.

Characters are made to seem sinister, having an ulterior motive due to this. For example, Lily fakes being interested in the Americana, not smoking and going to church for Mr. Gryce, while Mr. Trenor helps Lily financially in order to sleep with her. The reader is able to identify the difference between a conversation Lily has with Selden and one she has with other characters, due to the lack of need for Lily to keep her good reputation with Selden. Bart herself acknowledges that she doesn't have to ''pretend'' with him or be ''on guard against'' him. In other occasions, the young woman has to concentrate primary on gossip and pretense and strive to manipulate others, by calculating her every word. The irony in this fact is that by acting so, they showcase bad manners; lying, adultery, gossiping, and being passive aggressive, are all behaviours evident in the upper class. In the reader's eyes, this fact makes her relationship with Selden the realest one of the whole book, and comes to the logical conclusion, that he is the best partner for her, him symbolising freedom from materialism, something that she wants for herself. However, Bart is not able to detach herself from her thirst for money and therefore, continues her pursue for a wealthy husband, like Mr. Gryce, who is a symbol for freedom from financial