Literary Criticism Of A Lost Lady By Willa Cather

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

In my world, there is a dichotomy between the comfort of my hometown and the excitement of the unknown. Flat and uninterrupted, the Nebraskan landscape is as uniform as the political and religious attitudes of those who occupy it. I know that when I step

“Night” by: Elie Wiesel was a book that really moved me. The shock of knowing what the Nazis did to these innocent people is certainly horrifying. The pictures of the terrifying scenes that they saw during the holocaust must have remained with them forever. The nightmares probably haunted them for the rest of their lives. The thought that woke them up in the middle of the night of whether they were going to live through it or not. Wiesel told his story in a detailed, descript, and haunting way that at some

While some may say that the Upper Midwest has various discouraging characteristics, Debra describes her passion and endless love for the upper Midwest plains, although some may not see her perspective of the Upper Midwest as she sees it. Debra persuades her audience by using juxtapose by describing how the upper Midwest has much more resources that can’t be found anywhere else. As well she uses analogy and tone to show how other people think of her land as a wasteful plain where no even agriculture could be grown because of how horrible it is. She describes both positions so the reader can listen to both the good reviews of the land and as well the bad ones.

The Book of the City of Ladies During the renaissance many different views of leadership surfaced. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III each present distinct views of what would make a good leader during the renaissance period. Shakespeare and Christine de Pizan’s views align most closely with Plato’s.

     One manner in which this unusual place can be seen is in the women's privileged relationship to the land in the text. While Jim Burden attends school, it is Antonia who shapes and works the new land that the pioneers inhabit, going "from farm to farm" to

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

The whole structure of this story suggests a sense of gloom and darkness. Look at how she is described, “…a small, fat women in black…her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal” (Faulkner 315). Her house was dark and dusty. Isolation is apparent from the beginning to end of the story.

Throughout her many years as a poet, Margaret Atwood has dealt with a variety of subjects within the spectrum of relationship dynamics and the way men and women behave in romantic association. In much of her poetry, Atwood has addressed the topics of female subjugation in correlation with male domination, individual dynamics, and even female domination over males within the invisible boundaries of romantic relationships. With every poem written, Atwood's method for conveying the message of the poem has remained cryptic. She uses a variety of poetic devices - sometimes layered quite thickly - to communicate those themes dealing with human emotion. In the poem, Siren Song, Margaret Atwood

The story begins with the writer describing Miss Emily’s house, which was once nice and luxurious but has become hideous looking. Her house was once apart of the most select in the city, it was now covered with mold. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street.” (Lines 6-9) With the rebuilding of the Old South her house is left alone instead of making any improvements towards it, therefore emphasizing the habits Miss Emily is refusing to let go of.

In Virginia Woolf’s “Night and Day”, we, as the reader, can examine various feminist themes throughout the novel. Even though, “Night and Day” is one of her more conventional novels, many of the issues fly in the face of traditional values and capitalizes on the female oppression that was present in that time era. Even though, this was one of her earlier works, I believe that her conventional structure was an intentional creation, as she was trying to make a point on literary tradition and feminism. In contrast to many of her later novels, like “To The Lighthouse”, which had much anti-structure and stream of consciousness, “Night and Day”, is full of carefully written

To discover an erotics of place in Willa Cather's A Lost Lady, takes little preparation. One begins by simply allowing Sweet Water marsh to seep into one's consciousness through Cather's exquisite prose. Two paragraphs from the middle of the novel beckon us to follow Neil Herbert, now 20 years old, into the marsh that lies on the Forrester property. This passage, rich in pastoral beauty, embraces the heart of the novel-appearing not only at the novel's center point but enfolding ideas central to the novel's theme:

Two very powerful female figures are presented in Error of The Faerie Queene, and Sin of Paradise Lost. These two characters are quite similar in description, Milton making a clear tribute to Spencer's work. Both characters have the same monster qualities, and both posses allegorical names and qualities.

Even though Kate’s and Desiree’s story seem to take a different turn of events for a moment in time there are items that need to be brought to light. Kate brings the area of Louisiana to life when she describes the “ the sad looking place, which had not known the gentle presence of a women and how the steep roof came down and looked like a cowl.” Big, solemn oaks that grew close to the house that shadowed the home like a pall (pg. 422 American Literature) Kate witnessed this area in great detail and she was able to make this portion of the story so believable that while reading this section, the vision is brought to life. If Kate had not observe the land of

Gretel Ehrlich describes her move to Wyoming as awakening from a nap, satisfied in her new home she becomes absorbed in its tranquility and indifference. She is reborn, starts anew and creates a new life for herself. Ehrlich even cut her hair and buys new clothes to create a "new" and different person. To read and understand this essay means looking deeper into the author's story of rebirth, and how the big Wyoming skies were healing and put things into perspective for her. Thus, improving her quality of life without any fillers or distractions.