Inspired By The Song 'Poor Thing' By Stephen Sondheim

In the opening, she shares her childhood encounters with women in prose with the children’s rhyme “a little girl who had a curl”. This personal anecdote introduces the topic of the portrayal of women in literature, as well as establishes a connection with her audience.

As the carriage stopped beneath the archway, Elizabeth Cockles jumped out and looked around her. Above her head was a tall archway of trees that edged the pathway to the house. As she got closer, Elizabeth realised that “mansion” was a more correct way to describe it.

At the beginning of the short drama, “Trifles,” Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife, is painted as timid and submissive wife. She willingly submits herself to the responsibilities she has as a wife. As the play unfolds, Mrs. Peter’s submissiveness begins to diminish. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale work together to uncover the murder of Minnie Wright’s husband. When the women find the evidence, they refuse to share it with the men. Mrs. Peter’s character transforms into a more confident individual over the course of the play.

In the short story, “Marigolds,” by Eugenia Collier, the theme that is shown through the story is, “Beauty can be found even in the darkest times.” An example of this theme is represented through Lizabeth’s thoughts after she tears apart Miss Lottie’s marigolds. As Miss Lottie looms over Lizabeth, she thinks, “The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life” (Collier 223). This shows Lizabeth’s realization that the “witch” she had known for all her childhood years was simply a woman who wanted to create beauty through her wretched condition.

In spite of the promise of three weddings to be celebrated, the play concludes on a sour note when Feste, the clown, depicts life as grim, "for the rain it raineth every day" (Act V Scene i). They play’s primary central theme is that of the comic relationships between men and women. Furthermore, it illustrates the traditional, societal notions of “interdependence, and the newly emerging attitudes towards individual choice and personal desire, or as the play puts it, ‘will’” (Malcolmson 163). Although Twelfth Night is a story of love and courtship, nevertheless, it is also a “comedy of gender,” because of its ability to override the traditional Elizabethan notions of the female role through the characters of Viola and Olivia.

Kate Branch, an orphaned servant girl, began to suffer from a series of fits that disturbed her employers Mister and Mistress Wescot. Through Mister Daniel Wescot’s public service, the family had become prominent figures and were charged with providing Kate the basic needs and spiritual guidance as if she were a part of their family. Soon after Kate’s symptoms began, Mistress Abigail Wescot summoned the local midwife, Goodwife Sarah Bates, to examine

“This one was hardly bigger than a garage. The table was cluttered with limp- looking magazines and at one end of it there was a big green glass ashtray full of cigarette butts and cotton wads with little blood spots on them. If she had had anything to do with the running of the place, that would have been emptied every so often. There were no chairs against the wall at the head of the room. It had a rectangular-shaped panel in it that permitted a view of the office where the nurse came and went and the secretary listened to the radio. A plastic fern, in a gold pot sat in the opening and trailed its fronds down almost to the floor. The radio was softly playing gospel music” (O’Connor 3). As the Turpins waited Mrs. Turpin began to describe the other waiting room occupants to pass the time. Mrs. Turpin can be seen as a larger woman who is proud of her means and then there is her husband Claud who can be described as a “florid, bald, sturdy and shorter than Mrs. Turpin (O’Connor 1). Next was an unnamed blonde child whose attire consisted of a dirty blue romper, the boy’s mother was seen “wearing on a yellow sweatshirt and wine- colored slacks, both gritty-looking, and the rims of her lips were stained with snuff. Her dirty yellow hair was tied behind with a little piece of red paper ribbon” (O’Connor 5). The next woman is called the “stylish woman” by

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

The authors use of imagery paints a disconsolate scene of the struggles of young women. Anne Sexton grew up in a rather dismal home, noting abuse and neglect. Her parents were moderately wealthy, but mentally unavailable. Her depression took a turn for the worst after the birth of her first child. Since that severity wasn’t always there to haunt her, it

From beginning to end, Susan Glaspell’s 1917 short story “A Jury of Her Peers,” has several repetitive patterns and symbols that help the reader gain a profound understanding of how hard life is for women at the turn-of-the-century, as well as the bonds women share. In the story two women go with their husbands and county attorney to a remote house where Mr. Wright has been killed in his bed with a rope and he suspect is Minnie, his wife. Early in the story, Mrs. Hale sympathizes with Minnie and objects to the way the male investigators are “snoopin’ round and criticizin’ ” her kitchen. In contrast, Mrs. Peters, the Sheriffs wife, shows respect for the law, saying that the men are doing “no more than their duty”. However, by the end of the story Mrs. Peters unites with Mrs. Hale in a conspiracy of silence and concealing evidence. What causes this dramatic transformation?

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

In a century where woman are seen as dumbfound and whimsical a wife commits an unforgivable crime, but is let off the hook because of her friends that hide evidence. that could get her executed in front of the whole town. Mrs. Wright has been changed by her husband to the point that she’s not going to deal with it anymore. Mr. Wright is a hard man that doesn’t make any exceptions to what he wants which ultimately leads to his downfall. Susan Glaspell uses setting to add symbolic meaning in her play Trifles by putting objects in the setting that have background meanings to the story.

After children were returning home with bite marks on their neck being attacked by the “Bloofer Lady”, Dr. Seward and Dr. Van Helsing soon realize that Lucy in truth is the “Bloofer Lady”. One of Lucy’s numerous roles as a Victorian woman was to care for the children, but her role as a Victorian woman is greatly changed in these scenes becoming evident to the reader. After being interrupted ,“With a careless motion, Lucy flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone” (p. 236). Additionally, Lucy’s constant sexual desires and beautiful looks work hand and hand with one another. Altering the tone of her voice and acting as if she was alive attracted Arthur to go towards his once loved wife, but Dr. Van Helsing disrupted her plan by flashing a cross near her. During this scene Lucy takes on the role of a Victorian man seducing Arthur about to

The tailor’s widow, Mrs. Nakamura, happens to be watching her neighbor tear down his house when everything in her field of vision flashed white. Acting on motherly instincts, she makes a dash towards her children when suddenly she his hurled into the next room. As she is landing on her feet, tiles and timber knock her down, burying her under the debris of her house. Hearing the cry of her children, Mrs. Nakamura crawled out of the debris and began moving timbers and tiles to rescue her children.