Southern Gothic literature often incorporates its elements separately without any direct relationship between two of them, namely the grotesque and violence. While many of the Southern Gothic culture and literature explores these elements separately, there are cases where they simultaneously occur. Gillian Flynn is able to effectively incorporate both aspects individually before performing a crossover of the two in her novel Gone Girl. With the use of other aspects (economic downfall and mental instability) used in the Southern Gothic genre, she hints the issue regarding the marriage of the novel’s antiheroes, Nick and Amy Dunne, as they lead to the sheer ugliness (whether the gore is present or not) of their situations.
Flynn breaks down the types of violence present throughout the novel: domestic, sexual and patriarchal (or male dominance). Like combining the grotesque and violence into a text, two of the subtopics of violence (patriarchal and domestic) happen at the same time, which Flynn clearly presents in Gone Girl. Prior to Amy’s disappearance, the factor that lead to domestic and patriarchal violence is the economic downfall in which Nick calls “The Missouri Grievance” (Flynn, 4) as he “Blame[s] the economy” (4) and lost his mother to cancer. As Amy transitioned from the “Cool Girl” (Flynn, 222) to the “standard girl,” (223) this also causes Nick to lose his perception of manhood based on Amy’s role as a wife. Furthermore, the marital conflict occurs without
In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid is told from the perspective of two different people. There is a bonding relationship that is happening between the two people in this short story. The mother seems to be the main character in this essay uses a very strict tone to her daughter. The daughter is being told about how to do things in her life the correct way. The daughter barely speaks during this essay, she is doing more analyzing than arguing with her mother. When the mother gives the daughter advise she was trying to give her words of wisdom. But, at the same time, some of the ideas the mother gave to her child was offensive like “slut”. The mother has different perspectives throughout this essay with a lot of different
Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.
In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.
For a reader in 2017 “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid might seems very surreal and harsh as a story; mostly because of the very grating and mean language that is used when the mother is talking. The mother’s heartless language makes is really uncomfortable even though at the end of the day, she speaks nothing but love into her daughter’s life. She is giving her daughter social and family teachings, sharing with her the cultural and social values that will help her girl to have a peaceful and respected household and a happy life.
Themes of Family togetherness and love are illustrated through the article “Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid. Throughout the text Western Caribbean familial practices are discussed. Upon closer examination, the reader is presented with a series of images demonstrating customary cultural practices and moral principles that a Caribbean woman passes along to her young daughter. In the Case of Jamaica Kincaid, she has been influenced by common advice she received from her elders, in attempts to make the life ahead of her easier. In fact, the insight given is hoped to deflect her from bringing shame amongst the family. Moreover, the advices she receives from particularly her mother, are a mother's way of insuring that her daughter has the tools that she needs to survive as an adult in society. Inclusively, the fact that the mother takes the time to train her daughter on the proper ways for a lady to act in their culture is indicative of their familial love. The article "the girl" illustrates themes of familial love, cultural customs, and maternal bond through the eyes of a young black female growing up in the island of Antigua in a quasi society.
My movie is Mean Girls. I have probably watched this movie more times than I would like to admit. This is a great movies because any high school girl can relate to it. Mean Girls is about a teenaged girl names Cady that movies from Africa after being homeschooled for all theses years, and she goes to a public school and eventually ends up part of “the plastics” and completely changes from who she was. (Waters 2004) This movie really hits close to home being a teenage girl at one point. Mean girls has a lot to do with adolescence development such as: peer pressure, self-esteem, moral identity and observational learning.
Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.
“Girl”, a short story by Jamaica Kincaid is narrated from a girl’s point of view of her mother telling and teaching her how, in her mother’s eyes, to be the perfect lady. The story takes place in a cultural setting of the islands of Antigua where the author was raised. The title “Girl” makes us assume that this isn’t just a personal story, but a somewhat universal childhood that we all face as women and the cultural standards we all face to become the perfect lady.
Do you desire an intelligent teen comedy with witty dialogue? Do you reminisce on being young without the burden of responsibilities? Do you enjoy revenge stories? Mean Girls is the answer for such a particular audience.
or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense
For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.
I do concur with Rothman’s opinion that Gone Girl centers on the theme of manipulation. Flynn’s characters, Amy and Nick, are an ordinary white-collar couple and relatable to the reader; however, as the story progresses the implausible circumstances feels much more fictional. There is a struggle for Amy and Nick to keep up with the idealized cultural scripts of gender and class. For instance, Amy consistently failed to live up to her parent’s ideals and her failures are immortalized in her mother’s children’s series, Amazing Amy. As for Nick, he shows an immense weakness of character when he loses his job and his mother succumbs to her cancer. Nonetheless, it is Amy who is profoundly damaged by expectations to both appear and be perfect. Such
Divergent, by Veronica Roth, is the first instalment in a trilogy set in a dystopian society which is separated into five factions. Each faction blames a specific personality trait for society’s problems so strives to overcome that trait by cultivating it in its members. Abnegation blames greed and so pursues humility and selflessness, Amity blames strife and war and thus cultivates peacefulness, Candor blames falsehood and fallacy and so commends honesty, Dauntless blames cowardice and is thus dedicated to bravery, and Erudite blames ignorance and so celebrates intelligence and learning. Once a year all 16 year olds undergo an aptitude test, which reveals which faction they are most suited for. Beatrice 'Tris' Prior receives an inconclusive result, with her personality containing Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite traits.
It takes us back to the day Amy met Nick at a party, their 'meet-cute ' and the beginning of their romance, a very personal piece of information, followed by other flash backs of their blossoming romance leading up to their marriage. This is her play on the interpretive theory of communication. For at the heart of interpretive ontology is the belief that the individual is able to socially construct his/her world through the use of communicative interaction guided by three unrelated goals: explanation, prediction and control (Miller,2005). Hence Amy Dunne explains her life using entries from her diary, the source of her communicative interaction with fellow characters and the audience, painting the picture of a put-upon and devoted wife, who gave up her ideal life for her husband, moving to his small hometown and committing her life savings to him so he could care for his ailing parents and open a bar, thus luring the audience into a false sense of security. Hence, Gone Girl poses the question, can genuine expressions of sympathy or solidarity with victims ever happen without being infected by the politicised, media-enabled 'cult of victim hood '? (The New Yorker, 2014). For it is Amy we begin to root for, not because of the numerous episodes of 'Criminal Minds ' or 'Law and Order ' that the global
Amy’s mother and father abandoned their hopes of having a daughter that was as successful as they desired by creating an improved version of Amy in their lucrative children’s series, Amazing Amy. Entrenched in the comparison of her fictitious counterpart, Amy lives her life fooling those around her to believe she is an enhanced version of herself while silently dwelling on her discovery of Nick’s infidelity. The individuals that Nick and Amy become because of these childhood influences cause them to comply with another prevalent thematic element: “Fincher’s men act, often recklessly, but his women know (Orgeron et al. 2011).” In this example, Nick’s infidelity is his “reckless” behavior, while Amy’s “knowing” is her false appearance of ignorance, but as Orgeron states, “…behind this static gaze lies a more complete, more complex knowledge of the American family, its dissolution, its decay.” This idea of reckless men and knowing women is also an important thematic element in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Zodiac (2007), and Seven (1995).