Lady And The Peddler

Mary begins the story as a doting housewife going through her daily routine with her husband. She is content to sit in his company silently until he begins a conversation. Everything is going as usual until he goes “ slowly to get himself another drink” while telling Mary to “sit down” (Dahl 1). This shocks Mary as she is used to getting things for him. After downing his second drink, her husband coldly informs her that he is leaving her and the child. This brutal news prompts the first change in Mary, from loving wife to emotionless and detached from everything.

As a woman, the narrator must be protected and controlled and kept away from harm. This seemed to be the natural mindset in the 19th century, that women need to have guidance in what they do, what decisions they make, and what they say. John calls her a “little goose”(95) and his “little girl”(236), referring her to a child, someone who needs special attention and control. His need for control over her is proven when she admits that her husband is “careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction”(49). John has mentally restrained the speaker’s mind, she is forced to hide her anxieties, fears and be submissive, to preserve the happiness of their marriage. When the narrator attempts to speak up, she is bogged down and made guilty of her actions. Her husband makes her feel guilty for asking, he says, “‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!’”(225-226). By making her feel guilty for her illness, John has trapped her mentally from speaking up about it, convincing her that she must be more careful about her actions. Men often impose the hardships placed upon women during this era. They are often the people reassuring them of their “womanly” duties, and guiding them

After recently read a short story titled “Spunk” by Zora Neale Hurston about two men fighting for the woman that they love. Some stories end in happily ever after, but others end up in a tragic, like “Spunk”, one may say “fight for the person that you love”. In this story the two main characters are Spunk and Joe, they are both in love with the same woman, Lena. Spunk has a physical appearance that makes the village afraid of him, including Joe. Joe is married to Lena, but spunk wants her as well. Joe was shot after he took someone’s advice that he should go after Lena, which he did and for that advice caused his death. Spunk thought he

think that she is cheating and revels in this victory by saying “in his own

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie marries three different men, Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Tea Cake. Janie’s story is a representation of the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. This biblical story shows how the loss of innocence and paradise can have an immense impact on one’s life. Janie finds happiness with the love that is shown to her by the men who approach her. Sadly, each of her love stories end with tragedy.

Jacobs ' short sexual orientation change through cross-dressing, trailed by her long "withdraw" into aggregate physical disguise, is telling confirmation of how contrastingly a subjugated man and an oppressed woman reacted to the difficulties of their lives as slaves and additionally autobiographers.

He acted upon these initial feelings and started to communicate with her. Janie Also acted upon her feelings and agreed to start a relationship with this man, even though it might not be filled with “pollen and blooming trees, he spoke for far horizon” (C.4 p. 29). Janie felt as if Joe could satisfy her every need eventually. It just needed time to flourish. Joe started the relationship off by expressing to Janie that she was meant to be almost worshipped and that “she never knowed what it was to be treated like a lady” and he was here to show her what she's been missing out on. This later turns into irony. Joe is elected mayor of a town and becomes this powerful character with too much ego to bare. He starts to ask Janie to run the store that he put up for the people of his town, even though he claimed that a “ pretty doll-baby leak her is made to sit on de front porch and and rock and fan herself and eat p’taters dat other folks plant just for her” (C.4 p.29) so the guy that Janie thought was supposed to be her knight and shining armor, turned out to be her previous love in all the disguise of power and

In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” author Kate Chopin presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. The relief, however, is short lived. The shock of seeing him alive is too much for her bear and she dies. The meaning of life and death take on opposite meaning for Mrs. Mallard in her marriage because she lacked the courage to stand up for herself.

Elda Williamsson, who mistakes the peddler for a previously known friend and Captain, invites the peddler to stay with her family for Christmas and helps the peddler to become more confident and trusting towards the world. The peddler is a petty thief. Accordingly, he has stolen money from an old, benevolent farmer. Consequently, his actions have the peddler lost physically and spiritual in the woods and in his guilt. By the end of the story, Elda’s trust has transformed from a thief to an honorable man, as illustrated when the iron master asks the valet if the peddler has taken anything. Not surprisingly, the Ironmaster wholeheartedly anticipates that the peddler has stolen from him, but the valet confirms that, “the fellow had gone and

At this point she simply finds no other way but to accept the stereotypical view of a young innocent girl in a relationship with an experienced man, another example of women being victims of male authority. The key to the bloody chamber is the key to her selfhood and subjugation that will ultimately kill her. ‘The protagonist’s husband clearly considers her an object of exchange and plans to inscribe upon her his continuing tale of punishment for wives’ disobedience’[viii] again showing how women make themselves victims of their own behaviour, Helen Simpson’s interpretation is that ‘I really cant see what’s wrong with finding out about what the great male fantasies about women are’ [ix] The heroine fights against the victimisation, and indeed reverses role with the male in the story, as it is Marquis who dies and it is the female who leaves this chamber and finds happiness.

Growing up as a slave Jacobs was constantly exposed to sexual abuse from her master. She was forced to learn what it meant to be a slave that was

She tells John that she wants to visit Henry and Julia, her cousins, but he tells her that “she wasn’t able to” (Gilman 45). She is left feeling helpless: “what is one to do?” (Gilman 39). By suppressing her feelings, the narrator slowly “creeps” (Gilman 52) towards insanity.

Jacobs creates a connection by demonstrating her horrible experience as a slave and her humiliation in her choices to escape it: “Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another” (919). This shows that Jacobs attempts a draw an emotional response from free women so they will her understand of not only her experience as a female slave, but of many enslaved women that were subject to the same abuse as she. Nudelman states that on the title page of the first edition “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” there is the Scripture Isaiah 32:9: “Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye care less daughters! Give ear unto my speech.” This illustrates Jacobs’ motive of mobilizing free women to look upon enslaved women, pity them, and strive to free them. Continuing, Jacobs also uses her time in her grandmother’s crawl space to establish a connection with her female audience with a motherly dilemma. She is able to see her children, but she is unable to speak to them, nor give them the knowledge that she is directly above them (923). Mothers could sympathize with Jacobs wondering how they would respond if they were separated from their kids.

On one occasion when no servants were in the house Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph, but again she failed to lure him into her trap. Though, Joseph honored the Lord and his master he was sent to prison. But while in prison, he was still in the Lord’s favor and was put in charge over

Although it was typically unusual, due to social acceptability, women like Mrs. Joe who beat and dominated their husbands were subjected to public humiliation as an informal form of popular justice (Clark 188). Although spousal abuse was acceptable as a means of obtaining control, murder was completely unacceptable. Going back to the idea that female crimes were a betrayal of nature, there was an extra twist to murder when the murderer was a woman (Hughes 86). Female murder criminals were stereotyped as Mr. Jaggers' housekeeper: oversexed, insane, hormonally unbalanced or suffering from some biological defect (Hughes 68). As Pip is told to look at Jaggers housekeeper--"you'll see a wild beast tamed"--one notices the suggestion of a biological defect, or hormonal unbalance (195; ch. 24). Pip is also instructed to "keep your eye on it," as if this woman belongs to neither sex nor is she portrayed as human (195; ch. 24).