Mrs. Whipple and Her Son in Katherine Porter's He
In the story "He" by Katherine Porter, the main character Mrs. Whipple is often seen as a cruel, neglectful mother who mistreats her son, and there is ample evidence to support this view. But there is another away to look at Mrs. Whipple: she can also be perceived as a pitiful mother being forced to raise a retarded child that is totally incapable of returning her love. After closer inspection, however, it becomes evident that Mrs. Whipple does the best she can under very harsh circumstances, to raise and nurture her son to the best of her ability. She treats her son the way she does out of necessity and therefore should not be hated or pitied for her treatment of Him. In his book,
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Mrs. Whipple feels her neighbors are unfairly judging her because of her son's handicap. She probably knows that they talk about her behind her back and suggest that there is "bad blood" in her family. She also feels guilty about His condition; so she may suspect that it is somehow her fault. Consequently, she feels she must justify herself to them, and is very careful not to do things that will cause them to continually talk about her. Once again, this is a natural response and does not mean she is a bad mother. It can also be suggested that Mrs. Whipple is outright cruel to her son. It seems as if she makes Him do things around the farm that she does not make the others do. For example, she lets Him handle the stinging bees. Her older son Adna always gets stung, yet He does not seem to mind. This is a chore that has to be done, so she lets Him do the job. In addition, making Him capture the small pig from its mother, or lead a dangerous bull home seems unkind. Actually, Adna is unable to capture the pig, and her husband refuses to lead home the bull, so again, out of necessity she has Him do these things. He was made to plow the fields because He is the biggest and strongest and is also able to take over Adna's work when He leaves home. The fact is, she lets Him do all of these things
The Duvitches were immigrants from Europe, and their way of living was different as opposed to an average neighborhood in America. Tom had asked his mother “I wonder if it’ll be all right for Andy and me to help ’em move in their stuff.” (Page 2) Tom’s mother knew why he was truly asking. “This request, as Mother well knew, was not inspired by genuine feeling for the Duvitches but by curiosity and she shook her head.”(Page 2) Everyone whom lived on Syringa Street looked down upon the Duvitch’s because they were different. The Duvitch’s enjoyed keeping to themselves, and the people of Syringa Street thought this was abnormal. A few of the younger Duvitch’s decided to go to school, Mrs.Lovejoy whom was the principal was the only person nice to them. The students all judged them and had talked badly behind their
Mrs. Whipple clearly becomes uptight about what her own family has to say or think about Him, to the point where she wishes she were dead: "But they can 't say He wasn 't dressed every lick as good as Adna - oh, honest, sometimes I wish I was dead!" (439). Thus, it is evident that Mrs. Whipple feels stressed and under a lot of pressure with His situation. After all, it is Mrs. Whipple 's goal to make sure that people understand that her family, including Him, is nothing more than an ordinary family. Sadly, Mrs. Whipple 's excessive concern about what others think or say, her self-consciousness, does not allow her to focus on what really is important: her family, but more specifically, Him. She finally realized that the way she treated her son was wrong; towards the end, she at last opens her eyes and sees the world from His perspective, the cruel, uncaring, and lonely perspective:
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.
Life is not what everybody expects as days pass life changes and gets harder every day. In Hope’s boy, Andrew Bridge was a 5 year old boy who had the love from her mother and share a deep connection with, who thought that nothing else mattered. However, ended up getting separated from her mother at only 7 years of age because of her mother’s mental illness. Nevertheless, Andrew suffered from her mother’s separation having to be placed in a foster care and deal with loveless foster parents. Andrew was placed with the family Leonard’s who refuse to identify him as one of their children. Andrew experience emotional and physical abuse in the Leonard’s household. Mrs. Leonard was such a heartless person to Andrew. There was a time when little things will make Mrs. Leonard mad such as maybe Andrew leaving socks in the floor, not picking up after himself or maybe nothing at all and take it out on him. Andrew Bridge stated “Digging into my arms or grabbing at my face, she screamed that the foster child in front of her was ungrateful, lazy, obnoxious, confrontational, stupid, and undeserving. With her hand at my ear or at the base of my neck, she pulled me to the floor and through rooms” (181-182). This shows how the Leonard’s treated Andrew using physical abuse. Mrs. Leonard wanted to make Andrew feel what she felt when she was a young girl. As if Andrew didn’t had enough with Mrs. Leonard’s rejection he had to suffer being emotional abuse, bulled by Christopher Mrs. Leonard’s son.
When a child experiences trauma, it stays with them for the rest of their life. When a child experiences abuse, one of the highest forms of trauma, they can do little to stop it from affecting everything they do. Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, Illustrates this. While it can be said that Rosemary, the mother of Jack, was in many ways responsible for his life, she herself can not solely be blamed. The trauma and abuse she experienced as a child contributed greatly to her choices, and her son’s life. This shows that adversity in Rosemary’s life lead to her not being able to act normally, and this caused the life of her son.
With the arrival of the family in Welch, the sense of disconnection was furthered by the blending of family politics. The Walls family, dependent upon the charity of Rex’s parents for food and shelter now had to contend with racism and sexual abuse. The children who had been encouraged to speak freely about their opinions now had to keep quiet. Jeanette had visited a different neighborhood which her uncle had referred to as “Niggerville,” and this blatantly racist attitude was a shock (Walls 143). The grandmother accosted Jeanette that day, commenting “keep this up and people are going to think you are a nigger lover” not only was the word offensive to Jeanette, she told her grandmother “You’re not supposed to use that word, mom says they are just like us” (Walls 143). Her opinion was not appreciated; as a result, she was banished to the basement by her grandmother without food. There was no support from Rose Mary on the issue due to their dependence on the grandparents for food and
However, at the end of the story this stereotype is completely contrasted following the passing of the mother. When the boy, who is now a grown man and father, returns home to his newborn daughter it is he who displays a nurturing and affectionate relationship between a father and his daughter. This role reversal developed by Munsch effectively casts aside the stereotype that women are better suited to raise a child, and demonstrates that affection and the ability to nurture are not qualities that are able to be defined by a persons gender. Munsch instead shows how these qualities are learned by a person and are displayed as they mature with age. Munsch effectively represents this progression though maturity when showing, the love the boy has for his mother is not absent during his childhood, but simply something he does not display as well as he does when he becomes an adult.
Tobias Wolff’s memoir, “This Boy’s Life”, explores the idea that an individual’s actions can be altered due to the people they are exposed to. The protagonist Jack Wolff lives an impressionable life where he undergoes somewhat of a dilemma in relations to his actions, being incapable of changing for the greater good of himself. The absence of a proper male role model plays a large role on Jack’s actions, though is definitely not the only reason. Jack’s actions are influenced by Rosemary’s abusive and power craving ex-husband Roy, as well as Dwight’s violent and arrogant personality. However, Jack is also responsible for his
Nanny urges Janie to adhere to the requirements of a woman with the role of a family maker including cooking, cleaning, and bearing children. Hurston bluntly states Nanny’s views upon the role of women in her simile of a mule. There black women are below everyone else on the totem pole including black men and whites.
Of course she doesn’t want her husband to be violent, but on the other hand she doesn’t want to be humiliated in front of strangers either. This theory fits very well with her comment to her husband, when he’s about to vent his frustration on his son. “If you can’t discipline this child, I will” he says, and she answers: “Indeed? You and who else?” In that line she surely – using the words of the bige man - tells him, that she thinks he’s weak.
The narrator in the story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, is telling us this story in the third person singular perspective. Our narrator is a non-participant and we learn no details about this person, from a physical sense. Nothing to tell us whether it is a friend of Miss Brill, a relative, or just someone watching. Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill comes alive from the descriptions we get from this anonymous person. The narrator uses limited omniscience while telling us about this beautiful Sunday afternoon. By this I mean the narrator has a great insight into Miss Brill’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and into her world as a whole, but no real insight into any of the other characters in this story. By using this point of view,
"I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her suckling child". Jane Austen wrote these words about her novel, Sense and Sensibility, in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1811. Such a maternal feeling in Austen is interesting to note, particularly because any reader of hers is well aware of a lack of mothers in her novels. Frequently we encounter heroines and other major characters whom, if not motherless, have mothers who are deficient in maturity, showing affection, and/or common sense. Specifically, I would like to look at Sense and Sensibility, which, according to Ros Ballaster's introduction to the novel, "is full of, indeed over-crowded with, mothers" (vii). By
In addition, I have noticed that he describes Mrs. Auld’s transformation the same way he describes how slaves are "brutalized." She starts out a human being, with warm feelings and emotions, and becomes
The author entered the conflict about the value of motherhood in which American feminists were then, as they are now, engaged. Motherhood is also seen as a moral transformation, as a woman comes to terms with being different in that she ceases to be an independent individual because she is one way or the other attached to another her baby (FPS). Barbara Christian writes that Walker combines the forces of traditional and feminist perspectives on motherhood, attempting a compromise that would allow the protagonist to survive:
This oppressive nature results in an inferiority complex being developed by the narrator. The narrator is unable to express her opinion