Herculine Barbin Essay examples

She has been trained to trust in her husband blindly and sees no other way. He calls her “little girl” (352) and “little goose” (349) and states “She will be as sick as she pleases!” (352) whenever she tries to express her issues. Instead of fighting for what she thinks will make her better she accepts it and keeps pushing her feelings aside, while he treats her like a child. We get an instant feel for her problem in the first page when she says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that” (pg 346). A woman shouldn’t expect her husband to laugh at her concerns. Even after briefly writing about her condition she remembers her husband telling her the very worst thing she can do is think about it and follows his instructions. This is when she begins to focus on the house instead of her problems and the obsession with the wallpaper starts. She has nothing else to think about alone in the home; they don’t even allow her to write, which she has to do in secret.

“Eveline” and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” are similar stories set in different eras. “Eveline” is a short story written by James Joyce. “Where are you going, Where have you been” is a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates. Eveline and Connie are two teenage girls who are ultimately trapped by the influences of their cultures.

    Geraldine's anxieties over wanting to comply with what others think is beautiful, damage her existence. For example, the character of Geraldine is so consumed with physical

LGBT+ awareness is shown in this movie as Elle is a lesbian, who had a long-term wife and a short-term girlfriend, as shown in the movie. One of the people Elle and Sage go to visit to get money off is Elle’s ex-husband Karl, whilst they are there, Sage asks Elle if she ever liked men and Elle replies with, “no I always liked women I just didn’t like myself,” this shows the expectation Elle felt she had to live up to, whilst knowing her true feelings and felt as if she was lying to herself. I feel as this theme is very common among people struggling with identifying their own sexuality, as people feel they have a standard to live up to. There is a part in the film where Sage and Elle visit Elle’s friend Deathy to get money from, as she owed Elle, Deathy works at a tattoo shop and offered a tattoo instead, Elle said yes and got a circle, which looked similar to an ‘O,’ Sage told

gender roles. After the preliminary distinction of the characters, the author proceeds to reunite the

She is under the influence of her husband who detests it and complains about her being “flawed”. The connection I made was to myself. I was always born with moles/birthmarks on my face and I have always hated it. I felt so unattractive and felt as if everywhere I went, people were just staring at my face and shuddering. As I grew older, I got use to having them on my face, especially since I could not do anything about them at such an early age. Over time, I was fine with them, that was just what made me who I was. Except every time someone mentioned how many I have on my face or how it looked like I could “connect the dots” on my face, I felt terribly insecure and started to detest them myself. This ties into the theme striving for perfection within the story because Aylmer cannot live with seeing his wife with one flaw on her face. She never asked to grow one on her face, she never complained about his flaws yet he always made her feel bad for having one. This connection helped me understand what was happening in the story because I felt the exact same pressure to change myself as Georgiana

Above all, the passage deals with Cara Sykes coming out to wwher parents. Cara gathers her strength and announces that she is a lesbian to her parents. Her mom tries to make an attempt to talk her out of this by stating, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Lots of adolescents experiment with same-sex play. That doesn’t make you homosexual. But please don’t let it get in the way of a normal relationship.” Her mother doesn’t like the picture that having a lesbian daughter will paint. Cara knows that her mom thinks her sexuality will stain her mother’s name. To this Cara responds, “I’ve fought the ‘who’ of me for years. I wanted you to know the truth, but if you’re not mature enough to handle it, I don’t care. This is who I am- Straight-A, top of my class, Stanford-bound lesbian.” This is

The musical follows Alison through her life and the discovery of her sexuality. The first words the audience hears Medium Alison (freshman in college Alison) say are “Please, God, don’t let me be a lesbian.” Of all the theatre that exists in this world, I have never identified with one line more than Alison’s fear of herself. Not only is she afraid of her sexuality, she’s confused. “I’m not attracted to men, but that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to girls either,” she tells her soon to be girlfriend. My philosophy towards sexuality has always been “ I don’t know if I’m gay: I’ve never dated a girl.” When I told my father this, I was shut down and told that if I was gay I’d have known it forever. To have someone my feelings validated has put my mind at ease. It’s very likely that I am a lesbian, but for the moment I’m still not sure. I probably won’t be sure for a while. Fun Home let me know that it’s ok for me not to be

Her sexuality is an obstacle that she overcomes by first identifying she does not like men in relationships. To interpret sexuality, Hernández describes finding consonance with a lover as, “he’s a prose poem; I’m a vignette” (Enszer, para. 3). Even though “he doesn’t look anything like me,” he “feels like me” (Enszer, para. 3). Another example of Hernández describing sexuality is how she learned about sex as teenager. Hernández states, “My best friend and I spend our teenage summers reading Judith Krantz novels and watching porn videos from her father’s collection.

She pretends to be confident and happy but inside she just wants someone to care about her. Staying in Curley’s house is driving her crazy but whenever she comes out she is shunned, cast off because of who she is married to and what she looks like. Her husband, Curley also hates it when she steps out of the

This is because she is forced to recognize that her sexuality is the only weapon she has, and the only thing that gets her noticed as she is Curley’s property therefore he tries to control

Her coming-of-age moment challenges the gender roles during the time period that the story is set

Hedy’s sexual attraction to Allie typecasts lesbians and other non-heterosexual individuals as psychotic and incapable of feeling healthy love. The way that Hedy’s backstory of her twin dying when they were young parallels her copy-cat behavior toward Allie makes it seem like she is in search of a new twin. If the storyline had ended there it wouldn’t have been as questionable but because Hedy’s attraction to Allie is sexual, there’s an implication that her exposure to trauma led to her destructive same-sex attraction. In turn, this implies there is not only something inherently tragic about being gay but that tragedy results in homosexuality. This is further perpetuated by the ending monologue given by Allie where she asserts that she is trying to forgive herself because she knows what can happen if you don't. It seems she is implying that the guilt Hedy felt about her twin’s death led her to become psychotic. Unfortunately, this also signifies the guilt led her to be attracted to Allie which associates guilt with homosexuality. In the end, it’s clear that the creator of this narrative failed to consider the negative implications of Hedy’s sexuality. The film not only perpetuates homophobic fears of LGB individuals but also encourages a harmful distinction to be made between what homosexual behavior is acceptable and what is threatening to

She exists in a time when women are already given their roles and taught how to think in a singular manner (with no room for individuality) such as is displayed by her “finished” daughter as she (Elizabeth - Claire’s daughter) incessantly echoes the term “all the girls” (Glaspell, 1921, p. 24) as though the fact that she thinks in the same manner as the rest of her peers is something to be celebrated. Claire ceaselessly attempts to break away from this tradition but is unendingly held down by the various attachments in her life which forces her down a forlorn path. Claire shows the increasingly unsettling signs of insanity as the play progresses. She constantly has unfinished thoughts and is shown as displeased with everything from the knowledge that her dead son’s curiosity might have been snuffed out by the society – had he lived – to the failure of her daughter to be more than what society has ordained and to her own failure to properly break away from restraints on

Shug helps Celie aware of her own sexuality, and ironically ‘redefines’ her as a ‘virgin’ (Hall, 4)