Margery Kemp's Autobiography

Here opening line is “Once upon a time there was a wife and a mother one too many times” (Meyer 39). Here we find a stereotypical opening for a fairy tale but soon readers immerse themselves in an atypical tale. The first hints that she has an idea life start to resound in the very first sentence. “One winter evening she looked at them: the husband durable, receptive, gentle; the child a tender golden three.” Then the striking line, “The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again.” (Meyer 39). Unlike Melville, Godwin, quickly states the dissonance between the character and the character’s family.

In 1393, at the age of twenty, Margery married John, who was well-known for his talent in business. Becoming pregnant soon afterward, she began to have frightening encounters with Satan, whom she claims tortured her by making her feel guilt and extreme remorse for a sin

Her father James, who was a successful businessman who had acquired considerable real estate and was a practising catholic and man of deep faith passed away when she was very young. However his strong faith servilely impacted her. His inspiring example lead Catherine to persist being a Catholic her entire life. Which meant going against all the pressures and resisting or the criticism. Catherine 's mother lacked her husbands depth of faith and was much more interested in her social status within Dublin society than her religion. It was her father who provided her with the first model of service to the poor through his involvement with those in his own community. The second death of her parent forced into becoming independant, and growing up much quicker then she would have hoped. However again this has shaped the way Catherine was, and built her strong and caring character. Looking for god in this instance help Catherine gain strength to carry on to inspire and help others along the way. “Do not put your trust in any human being, but place all your confidence in God.”(Catherine McAuley 49). Catherine was influence by religion from a very young age, which has shown significantly throughout her life. Her fathers presence in her life at a young age was still so impactful that she carried out his religion and pushed through all other temptations to convert.

“She wishes she had asked him to explain more of what he meant. But she was impatient…to be done with sewing. With doing everything for three children, alone…” (1125, 3), and “Respect, a chance to build. Her children at last from underneath the detrimental wheel. A chance to be on top” (1124, 2) both reveal the motives behind getting married to this man, despite the religious conflict. She is torn between the pros and cons of this new life. It’s although she is trying to convince herself, but the negative thoughts just keep surfacing.

As the novel begins we are shown Edna’s life before her escape from society’s standards. At the beginning we are shown that Edna is valued by society because of her physical appearance and is portrayed as a housewife married to a wealthy husband. On only the seventh page of the novel we are shown the lack of individuality women had during this time period. We are first introduced to Edna and Edna’s husband, Leonce. Leonce creates the income for the family as well as viewing his wife more of a possession rather than a partner. Leonce notices Edna is sunburned when she has come back from swimming and views her as “a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage” (7).

During the pre-revolutionary period, more and more men worked outside the home in workshops, factories or offices. Many women stayed at home and performed domestic labor. The emerging values of nineteenth-century America, which involves the eighteenth-century, increasingly placed great emphasis upon a man's ability to earn enough wages or salary to make his wife's labor unnecessary, but this devaluation of women's labor left women searching for a new understanding of themselves. Judith Sargent Murray, who was among America's earliest writers of female equality, education, and economic independence, strongly advocated equal opportunities for women. She wrote many essays in order to empower young women in the new republic to stand up against

The Wife of Bath begins her prologue by explaining that she considers herself an authority of marriage due to her “experience”; the Wife of Bath says, "Experience, though no authority/Were in this world, would be enough for me/To speak of woe that married life affords;/For since I was twelve years of age, my lords,/Thanks be to God eternally alive,/Of husbands at the church door I've had five” (Lines 1-6). Due to her five marriages, she has often been criticized because others have said that Christ went “to a

Martha Ballard, while to many the messiah of Maine, might have been more of a parading pestilence as she moved throughout the town giving treatment and illness, one and the same. Throughout Martha Ballard’s diary and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s transcription of such, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, various examples of transmission can be seen with some cases leaving individuals dead and families destroyed. Such sicknesses included Dysentery, Scarlet Fever, and unidentified illnesses. While Martha brought happiness through births and lifesaving procedures, she also brought along hidden pestilence. The Ballard family was instrumental in the spread of disease throughout their town, Hallowell. Due to lacking medical knowledge and no

The Curious Writer is published by Custom Publishing which also shows the credibility of the

By the novel, Mary discusses several issues related to relationships which terrorize aspects of her personal life, including birth and childhood, the death of her mother, her miscarriage and new child and her coming across with the events which occurred in the summer of 1816 (see notes).

The prologue of this tale showed that the Wife of Bath was not seen as an upstanding woman, nor did she desire to be seen as one. She portrayed feminism, almost as soon as she began speaking in the prologue, she explained that she had gone through five husbands, and she was on the look out for a sixth. She also admitted that she married for money:

Furthermore, the text magnifies the attempts to be socially mobile through marriage, evident as Emma devises long-term strategies for advancement thus, demonstrating the desirable goal to belong to a class supported by inherited wealth. This is shown with Emma promoting Mr. Elton over the “society of the illiterate and vulgar” Mr. Martin. Emma’s didactic description of the yeomen farmer marks her attempt to match Harriet with one of higher consequence so her friend doesn’t end up socially inferior like Miss Bates and Miss Goddard who are unmarried. However, order is restored in the text as the concept of marriage between equals is reinforced with Emma’s realisation in her interior monologue “that Mr. Knightley should marry no one but herself”. Emma’s reward of an equal partner combined with her acceptance of Harriet’s decision to marry Martin emphasises how society valued marriage between equals as it allowed for a consolidation of the social hierarchy. Emma presents the place of marriage within the social hierarchy of Highbury with the value shaped by the attitudes of Highbury.

was her daughter. Mathilde spent the evening in a cloud of happiness and it was four in the

The Wife of Bath is a wealthy and elegant woman with extravagant, brand new clothing. She is from Bath, a key English cloth-making town in the Middle Ages, making her a talented seam stress. Before the wife begins her tale, she informs the audience about her life and personal experience on marriage, in a lengthy prologue. The Wife of Bath initiates her prologue by declaring that she has had five husbands, giving her enough experience to make her an expert on marriage. Numerous people have criticized her for having had many husbands, but she does not see anything immoral about it. Most people established negative views on her marriages, based on the interpretation of what Christ meant when he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband

The family is catholic and some different biblical events are used to symbolize different events that occur in the family. The mention of an angel coming to Mary to tell her she was pregnant (Chapter 2, page 11) symbolized how it took a miracle for the girl’s father to allow them to go to school. Maria Teresa gaining a soul (Chapter 3) symbolized how she came to be more of a woman and accepted into the family. It wasn’t until after her communion that she was accepted into Minerva’s circle of loyalty and secrets. The symbolism of Christ’s resurrection in three days (Chapter 10) was used as a false ideology and instead of getting a resurrection another member of her family was taken