Girls of Slender Means

She believes being a lady is one of the biggest virtues in life. Her perspective in life holds the ideas that you can find good in everyone. Throughout her life, she developed a strong relationship with God that is very apparent throughout the story. She learns that you can ask God for help in times of troubles, and ask for forgiveness when committing a sin. She believes by accepting his grace you can do wonderful things. She feels the strong spiritual feeling just before her death. Throughout the entirety of the story, she kept her self-centered attitude, starting with her decision of where the family should travel for their time off. She decides without the family’s input towards the decision. She decides this to save her from running into the Misfit, whom she read about in the daily newspaper that week. She is also seen using her belief of her religion in many situations. When the grandma came face to face with the Misfit, she attempted to use her religion as a way to escape her death, which comes to every members of the family. The Misfit does not believe the same morals she holds, so the situation is proved to be unsuccessful because of the outcome. She believes you should drop everything and follow God, and that is why we were put on the Earth. In the moment before her death, the Misfit believes she should enjoy the few minutes she has left, because she should know the outcome of the situation due to being so close to God and knowledge of fate. In the short minutes before her death, she understand the many situations where she went wrong in her life. Unlike most of her perspectives on people, the look upon the good in people changes. She clearly states that people have changed and the number of good people decreases within time drastically saying “People certainly not nice like the used to be”(O’Connor 21). She then learns a new moral

In its simplest form, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tells the story of a young woman, Jane Eyre, who grows up poor, makes the decision to be independent, does so, and, eventually, marries rich. The novel follows her from her childhood to her reunion with the love of her life and she, throughout it, deals with classism and sexism and exhibits her own form of feminism. By the end, it becomes clear that, with this semi-autobiographical novel, Charlotte Bronte was providing a criticism on society’s discrimination toward those of a lower class, a subtle argument against the male-dominated society’s treatment of women, and an even subtler call to action for women to find their own agency outside of the men in their lives. On another end, however,

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are both literary works in which women show radical actions deviating from society’s norms. The two women from their respective works, Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice and Nora from A Doll’s House, are both seen as alienated from their own society in a way that allows them to explore social values. Elizabeth is constantly trying to find love in a world where marriage for women exists with the sole purpose of financial stability and Nora is sick and tired of being “a doll” to Torvald

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are both literary works in which women show radical actions deviating from society’s norms. The two women from their respective works, Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice and Nora from A Doll’s House, are both seen as alienated from their own society in a way that allows them to explore social values. Elizabeth is constantly trying to find love in a world where marriage for women exists with the sole purpose of financial stability and Nora is sick and tired of being “a doll” to Torvald and wishes to have more freedom in her life.

She often pondered to herself when her daughter asked for typically feminine items like makeup, thinking if there is an underlying meaning to it. As a result she states, “Love (as well as writing) involves a radical loss of certainty” (295). She shows her readers this “loss of certainty” in her family life, as well as in her writing throughout the whole text

The protagonist in the story narrates about the life of a couple she hired to work for her. O’Connor talks about the social issues that affected the girl child during the postwar period. The author presents two families, one with two daughters, and the other with one daughter. The woman who hired the couple with two daughters loves the girls because she does not get along with her own daughter. O’Conner writes, “Mrs. Hopewell liked to tell people that Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew” (O’Conner, 1955).

Why would a frightening percentage of American women gladly trade five years off their lives for 10 pounds off their bodies, or prefer to be perceived as thin rather than as kind or intelligent? This obsession with thinness needs to be understood if we are to avoid the consequences, which are often tragic. Beyond this, there are further steps that ought to be taken so that women can have a healthier and more positive sense of themselves.

I think

What age group is the most vulnerable? The age group of 15-24 is the most vulnerable.

When searching for female role models in literature across the ages, one may look towards Jane Eyre, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Joy Luck Club. Set in 19th century England, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, is the memoir of an orphan named Jane Eyre. From her first memories, Jane is different from the people around her and is treated as such. She faces prejudices for her social an economic status, as well as for being an educated woman. To see the world, Jane finds work as a governess for Adele, the charismatic ward of Mr. Rochester, at Thornfield manor. Brontë uses characters around Jane to compare the ideals for women in her society with the hope of what women could be. In the end, Jane and Mr. Rochester are married, but only after

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just the need as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties; and a field for their efforts just as their brothers do” (Brontë 96). In the book Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, Jane lives a very independent life as a woman in the Victorian Era. Jane follows her own path, which takes her many places including her Aunt Reed’s house, a charity school called Lowood, Thornfield where she has a job as a governess, and to the Moor House where she meets her cousins. On each of her journeys, Jane uses her own morals to guide her decisions. Through the motif of gender, we can see that people, especially women, can be self reliant and independent.

In Charlotte Bronte’s gothic fiction Jane Eyre, a young woman challenges authority, faces adversity which she overcomes, and is determined to marry not for others, but for love.

Parallel to many of the great feministic novels throughout literary history, Jane Eyre is a story about the quest for authentic love. However, Jane Eyre is unique and separate from other romantic pieces, in that it is also about a woman searching for a sense of self-worth through achieving a degree of independence. Orphaned and dismissed at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle that was characterized by a form of oppressive servitude of which she had no autonomy. She was busy spending much of her adolescent years locked in chains, both imaginary and real, as well as catering to the needs of her peers. Jane was never being able to enjoy the pleasures and joys that an ordinary and independent child values. Jane struggles

The renowned Victorian novel, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, offers a new view on the female psych and romance unseen previously. The heroine, Jane, searches through her life in hopes of love and family; which she grew up without. From her time to Lowood, she finds love in learning. During her employment at Gateshead, she finds love in Mr. Rochester. At Moor House, she finds love in family. The lives Jane meets are quite different that hers, each being shaped by their religious beliefs. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte demonstrates how one’s Christian faith affects love, obedience and career. The morality provided by Christianity sketches an ideal life which is interpreted and executed in how one loves, obeys, or finds satisfaction in a career.

Similar to many of the great feministic novels of its time, Jane Eyre purely emerges as a story focused on the quest for love. The novel’s protagonist, Jane, searches not only for the romantic side of love, but ultimately for a sense of self-worth and independence. Set in the overlapping times of the Victorian and Gothic periods, the novel touches upon both women’s supposed rights, and their inner struggle for liberty. Orphaned at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle, without any major parent roles to guide her through life’s obstacles. Instead, she spent much of her adolescent years locked in imaginary chains, serving those around her but never enjoying the many decadences life has to offer. It is not until Jane becomes a