Joy Ride Essay

    The narrator finds herself economically and emotionally dependent on her husband, John.  Many times she questions to herself why she stays in the room all of the time.  She then answers herself by saying, " John says it is good for me" (Gilman, 665).  She thinks of her husband as much wiser and more important than she, which is the way that society treated males during the time period the story was written.  During this era, women were discouraged from joining the work force and were thought to be better suited as a mother, and wife rather than an employee.   This is the common stereotype that women tried to overcome during the women's movement.

Early on in the novel, the reader begins to learn that the The Man and The Boy have a very close and intimate bond. Rather than causing a strain on the their relationship, the isolation that constantly follows the pair on The Road actually made their bond as father and son stronger . Traveling along The Road by themselves causes The Man and The Boy’s relationship to become extremely codependent. The Boy relies on The Man like any child would rely on their father. The Boy completely counts on The Man for everything, including food, shelter, clothes, and everything else that is needed to survive on The Road. The Man keeps them safe from the “bad guys” and keeps them alive and as healthy as he can. The Boy’s needs are always put before The Man’s needs. However, The Man depends upon The Boy just as much as The Boy depends on him. If it weren’t for The Boy, The Man would have been dead a long time ago. The only reason that he has survived this long is because of The Boy. Making sure The Boy survives is the only meaning that The Man has to his life. The Boy’s continued existence is the most influential motivation

& nbsp;              ROUGH RIDERS                                                 Ben Kerfoot                          3/7/02                          Per. 5

John is an antagonist of the story. He feels he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, the reader soon realizes, this treatment is only worsening her mental state. He is never home with her; he always has patients to see in town, leaving her locked in this house; alone with her thoughts. He ensures that she gets rest and fresh air to get well. To him, it may seem as though he is doing his wife good; by locking her away in this mansion. However, this seclusion she experiences causes serious damage to her mental state. Her husband has control over her that women

The narrator’s varying stately yet fervent tone illustrates her obligatory feelings as well as her true emotions regarding her husband and lifestyle through her descriptions of the “nursery” where she is confined (Gilman, 648). John, since he is both her husband and doctor, “hardly lets [her] stir without special direction,” characteristic of patriarchs of the family; he also “laughs at [her], of course, but one one expects that in marriage.” (Gilman, 648 and 647). Since the narrator feels

During my ride along with Officer McNairy of the Castle Rock Police department we had two cases of harassment, one welfare case, and one traffic violation that we worked on. Both harassment cases were easy enough, as was the traffic violation which we let go with just a warning. Welfare cases don’t normally go to police officers to manage, but on the day of my ride along one was. I had a very good time during my ride along and will probably do more in the future.

In these chapter we are introduced to a new character Ellander McCourry who is revealed to be john walker's mother. She meets a songcatcher about which the book is named. When she says she was afraid of being punished for going above herself it show how times where different. She displays a love for the Appalachian Mountains that is still common today. Ellander is a victim of the same curse “No McCourry from this day forth shall ever love best their first born child” as all the McCourry’s are. This is extremely relevant in John Walker’s relationship with his mother. Who seems not to care in the slightest for John. This is made even worse when his brother Malcolm dies. This would infuriate me. I feel that I would be very angry with my mother if she showed so as much favoritism as Ellander does. Even though i am not a parent, I don’t understand how a parent could love one of their children more than the other child.I find that the lack of love from one of the parents have given the oldest child in the McCourry family a determination to do more with their life. They strive to make their parent proud, but they never do

The first conflict John faces is the loss of his mother. Tabby’s death both angers and upsets John. In any case, losing your mother is a horrible. It was especially unfortunate for John because he has no idea who his true father is. He is irritated that she never even got around to telling him who his real father is. It even makes him more resentful when he finds out she lived sort of a second life as “The Lady in Red”. The most tragic of John’s experiences is the sacrificial death of Owen Meany. John is absolutely traumatized by the death of Owen. Owen’s death is the reason John lives in Canada, hates America, and is stuck in the past. John still hasn’t even come close to getting over Owen’s death, and he never will. John even ends his memoir with “O God-please give him back I shall keep asking You!” (617). The trauma John has gone through has even damaged him sexualy. He is still a virgin and has never felt sexual desire. Katherine’s husband describes him as a “non-practicing homosexual” but he believes that his problems are caused by his

John, the narrator’s controlling, but loving, husband represents the atypical man of the time. He wants his wife to get better and to be able to fill the role of the perfect wife that society expected from her. John, being a doctor, did not quite believe that her mental illness was out of her control and insisted on

This implies that she’s lost all hope of communication and understanding between her and John in their marriage. She no longer holds the hope that she will get better with the help and support of her husband. This only throws the woman farther and deeper into depression in the prison of her mind. Because she lacked the feelings of fulfillment, love and support, she fell into a deep and dark depression that affected her both physically and emotionally.

Survival may be one of the natural instincts in human beings, but it can and sometimes will be overcome by other powerful emotions. John's initial struggle for survival is suppressed by his overwhelming love for his wife. He becomes involved when his wife's name is mentioned in court, and her life becomes endangered. John does a complete turn around on his perspective of the situation. He goes from being completely isolated, to attempting to take control of the situation. However, his initial failure to do the right thing from the start caused this plan to fail.

        The words stabbed at John’s heart and flooded him with a mixture of regret and guilt.  His muddled mind served up flashes of his disagreement with Mary, of his refusal of his mom’s request and of the related emotional suffering he and his siblings had

The Ride is the story of the heinous and gruesome murder of ten year old, Jeffrey Curley, a case that is familiar to many in the Massachusetts area. The book works its way from the grisly crime to the years afterward. It focuses on the family of Jeffrey, heavily weighted on the life of Cambridge Firefighter Bob Curley, Jeffrey’s father. Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari, both from Jeffrey’s neighborhood were convicted of the murder. Within this essay I will demonstrate from The Ride the relationship between reporting and suffering that may have been brought on for the crime victims of this case, the relationship between the victim profiles and the victim family profiles, the role in which the family may have played in the

Despite John’s efforts to repress the narrator’s freedom, her writing in the journal “reveals [her] awareness that John continuously tries to manipulate her” (Suess). This awareness alludes to the fact that the narrator has now come to the realization that she is trapped and so therefore, she must escape. The narrator then “continues to write, move about, and study the wallpaper—thus disobeying John’s strict orders—[revealing] John’s demands to be merely superficial”

In “Part One: The Seventh Day,” we are enlightened to John’s aggravation and his hope to protect others from it when he suggests to his little infant sister, Ruth, that as soon as she is old enough to stand that she ought to run away from their home. This alone reflects on how badly John does not want to be a part of the family and wishes that he himself were able to abandon them. John’s hatred for his family, in concurrence with his later thoughts in “Part Three: The Threshing Floor” where it is questioned that “perhaps they [his family] did not help him because they did not care or because they did not love him” (Baldwin 195). These two instances contradict one another. One is filled with solitude and emotional absence. The other is comprised of a child longing for the compassion of a