In A Wagner Matinee, Willa Cather utilizes realism in order to display the consequences of living for someone else. Realism particularly focuses on representing middle-class life from the Civil War in the 1860’s to the turn of the century. The story’s settings portray a middle-class life wrought with hardship, regret, and grief. Local realism is weaved throughout the story to emphasize the consequences of not staying true to one’s dreams. Cather draws upon Clark and his aunt Georgiana’s lives as a contrast of life choices. Clark is the example of growth and expansion. He enjoys a life in the constantly evolving modern world. Meanwhile, Georgiana is tied down by her past choices. She once lived in the modern world as well. Then, she decides to give up her own happiness in youth to live the way her husband wishes. Unfortunately, he dies thirty years later and leaves a realization in his wake: love does not prevail over everything else. Cather stays true to the feelings of Georgiana. Unlike the romanticism of a fairytale, Georgiana fills with regret after conceding an immense amount of her time in living for her husband’s sake. Couples normally agree to make compromises for the happiness of both individuals, but they also need …show more content…
The toll of living on the homestead played up specifically in his mind. He describes her as worn down, with physical and mental energy drained, tired from the hard life. When Clark and Georgiana watch a musical performance, the matinee takes her back to her days filled with music and joy. The memories give her sadness because she left them for a fleeting romance. Maybe she loved her husband, but nothing joyful remains in her home. The hardships of a homestead were her husband's happiness, which leaves her with no joy of her own. Even memories fade over time which means reality has left her a poor widow with a home filled full of dull decrepit
The stereotypes of rural Black women are depicted in the seemingly dilapidated state of mama’s old homestead. This is a stereotype of the poor and humble lives of the black subsistence farmers residing in the old South. Although Dee and her friend look down upon their lives, the reality is different. Mama completely owns her own reality and she is proud
Taylor’s mother worked hard to keep her from “fitting the mold” of girls in this town; get pregnant in high school, get married at a young age, and stay in this town forever. Taylor did not want this life for herself so she did everything in her power to make a better life for herself. Throughout the course of the novel Taylor grew as a person because she learned the importance of family, opened her eyes to new experiences, and grew to be more apparent of the realities of her world.
Mark Strand’s poem, “Poor North” depicts the life of a married couple facing countless struggles during a harsh winter. It tells of a man working in an unsuccessful store while his wife sits at home, wishing for her old life back. The way the wife copes with her sadness is both intriguing and perplexing. She misses her old life, even though it is described to have not been special; however, the wife may be a person who never feels satisfied or fulfilled by the external world due to internal conflict. Despite the wife’s obvious misery, she stays by her husband’s side and they stroll in the cold together, bracing the wind. As a means of escape from life, she peers into her past in order to find hope in the present.
Abigail had worked the farm progress for four years, also being in control of gathering rents from many householders ad watching culture management. Abigail was short of labor and intense expansion made it a hard one. Four years late Abigail lightened her concern by leasing the farm (Virginia E
She, not one who had lived off the land followed her husband’s life choice of farming. Initially putting in many low-income hours, she learned the skills of livery, gardening, and cannery. Years pass, two more mouths are added to the family. Ultimately enough earnings
The grandmother tells the children a story about an old plantation that is along the route they are travelling. However, while searching for this plantation, the grandmother realizes that the “horrible thought she had had before the accident was that the house she had remembered vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (O’Connor 12). She is too vain to admit her mistake and this caused the family to be in a horrible accident which leads to even more
Already in the beginning, miles of farmland wedge between John and Ann as he ventures off to “help [his father] with his chores, while “mak[ing] sure he’s all right in case [they] do have a storm.” Without her husband for company, she spends the day alone at home, painting, “brooding” and witnessing the intensity of the storm grow vicious. As “the double wheel around the moon” foreshadowed, the storm tested the “elements of human meaning and survival,” forcing the wise to stay indoors away from its “sharp, savage blows.” Also, the desolate prairies, themselves, add to the tense, stultifying aura of solidarity. While the landscape lay bleak and uninviting, how even “the distant farmsteads [Ann] could see served only to intensify a sense of isolation” appears clear. Not only “miles deep between her now and John,” Ann faces a natural barrier between the neighbouring homesteads as the “long white miles of prairie landscape” conceived a “region strangely alien to life.” In essence, the physical barriers, from the “sudden, maniac raging of the storm” to the vast stretches of farmland, allows loneliness and the “ever-lurking silence” to creep into the characters’ hearts until suffering takes control of their
The objects people keep in their homes can tell a story about who they are or were. Each item possessed by the residents of a house is evidence of how these people may have lived. Ted Kooser’s poem “Abandoned Farmhouse” takes the reader on a walkthrough of the remains of a farmhouse where a poor family once lived. In “Abandoned Farmhouse,” Kooser selects seemingly insignificant relics left behind by each family member to illustrate who these people were and how they lived. The picture he paints is a bleak one and reflects the impoverished life which the residents lived within this now lonely and desolate building.
I believe the author wrote about all these messed up relationships because Cather’s love, Isabelle McClung, unexpectedly got engaged to violinist Jan Hanbourg, which caused Cather to suffer from (Murphy 23). She expressed her suffering through these
it and started to loathe what she admired most. His original love and appreciation for his wife turned into an obsession of trying to mold her look the way he wanted her to, not the way God intended. In the end Georgiana felt as though she would rather die than to
I never understood NFL free agency. It seems as though, it is a way for an athlete to make as much money as they possibly can over the length of their career. It is a way for teams to sign players whose contracts have expired and are free to play for whomever they choose. These athletes are catered to, flown everywhere just for the possibility of them signing with their team. But, sometimes, teams have to cut players that have helped them win over the years. As a football fan, in most cases, I enjoy free agency because this is a great chance for my team to collect players to improve their roster and give them a better chance to win.
I looked in our mortar and pestle--yuck! Green glop, complete with sesame seeds and puffed rice. This was traditional green tea? When we were called to try drinking it, I felt I looked as green as the “tea” itself. As far as field trips and culture went, I liked the other Hakka (an indigenous Taiwanese people, culture, and language) museums and crafts better. For one, we didn’t have to eat anything else we created, such as traditional textiles. As glad as we all were for the outing, on that day, my classmates and I were happy to return to our regular lessons. I was especially excited for our daily quiz; our teacher was an artisan by hobby, and she had promised a special gift to the three students with the highest number of perfect scores at
Life in the Iron Mills is a novella that is hard to classify as a specific genre. The genre that fits the most into this novella is realism, because of the separation of classes, the hard work that a person has to put into their every day life to try and make a difference, and the way society influences the actions of people and their relationships. However, no matter what genre is specifically chosen, there will be other genres present that contradict the genre of choice. While the novella shows romanticism, naturalism, and realism, this essay is specifically centered around realism. The ultimate theme in Rebecca Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills is the separation of classes and gender. It is the separation of classes when the people in the
His findings revealed that TIV; trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine (dead virus) was effective in eight of the twelve seasons, rendering 67% whereas, the LAIV; live attenuated
It took very long, but by sunset, she recognized her farm and her fields. But it had been destroyed. The fields looked as if they had erupted, and her animals were missing. But her house was the saddest . . . it was gone. All her belongings were scattered everywhere.