Rachel Laurence In Brave New World Interior Monologue

“Now, David,no-” “He’ll be thirteen next month and he needs to be with me more.” “David, he’s just a boy.”

This inner defiance gives evidence to Rachel’s determination and individuality. The sweater now represents a sort of barrier and if she submits herself to it, she fears the world of ages and maturity.

Another way to deal with past regrets that is brought to light is the idea of repressing that memory in the first place. Unlike her sisters, Rachel Price is the only one who ignores her guilt. After Ruth May’s death and their departure from Nathan, Rachel rarely ever brings these major events up again. Instead she talks about her new life, speaking about her newest boy toy and complaining about the African’s culture. The night of Ruth May’s death, since Rachel is

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, which is also her doctor, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness. Everyday she keeps looking at the torn yellow wallpaper. While there, she is forbidden to write in her journal, as it indulges her imagination, which is not in accordance with her husband's wishes. Despite this, the narrator makes entries in the journal whenever she has the opportunity. Through these entries we learn of her obsession with the wallpaper in her bedroom. She is enthralled with it and studies the paper for hours. She thinks she sees a woman trapped behind the pattern in the paper. The story reaches its climax when her husband must force his way into the bedroom, only to find that his wife has pulled the paper off the wall and is crawling around the perimeter of the room.

Although Rachel is very emotional, in the only dialogue between her and Mrs. Pierce she sounds very shy, unsure of herself, not ready to confront and timid.

The complexity of Rachel’s character differs within the play. On the one hand, Rachel is portrayed in a male disguise showing she has independence as she has taken matters into her own hands, her successful manipulation through disguise perhaps demonstrating her intelligence and how easily women can dupe men. This could also suggest that she is not acting according to the social ‘norms’ for women in the 60s demonstrating that she doesn’t fear people’s views of her although she is a woman. She demonstrates her strength and independence as she takes matters into her own hands ‘I’ll take two hundred in cash’ and acts in a violent way ‘Rachel slaps Francis’, portraying the growing power of women. On the other hand, Bean could have done this to project the message that women cannot hold any power without the help of a man. Although she has decided to solve her problem herself, she has had to dress up as a man to do so, thus showing that women’s roles are often tokenistic. The motive behind her plan was also for a man illustrating the length a women will go for a man. Had Rachel not dressed up as a man maybe she would not have gotten so far, her success in doing so

Unable to think clearly, Lelia’s thoughts skipped illogically around her head. In that irrational state of mind a split-second decision flashed through her head. No more chores, no more care of the children, and no more pretending life was okay so that Owen wouldn’t drink so much. No. Today she would simply leave it all, the children, Owen, and the farm.

Kaplan 2). This struggle was the beginning of her independence from her relatives and her coming of age.

Another theme contributing to the story is the obvious parental neglect that takes place in the narrator’s home. The girl makes the distant relationship between her and her

She tells of the feeling of shame which emerge from not even having a bed throughout her entire childhood (3). She does reassure that she has the security of her family being the only constant in her life, “Close and sweet and loving. Lucky me on my small pallet on the floor” (4). Travelling every summer “We never knew from one day to the next, from one year to the next, where we would go or live or what we would do” (127), her security of her family seemed always there “Having lived in other people’s houses, barns, and in migrant housing in various stages of decay and repair, it felt as though we could make a home out of anything” (99).

She has been confined to the former nursery in her family's colonial mansion to cure her of hysterical tendencies, a medical condition she was diagnosed with after the birth of her son (Gilman 1997: 1f.). The woman confides in her secret journal how her contact with the outside world has become strictly limited on account of her Doctor's recommendations, and how the treatment forces her to spend her days in a barely furnished room with only her own mind and the objects around her as companions (Gilman 1997: 1f.). One of the main objects she actively engages with during this period of isolation, other than the nailed down bed and her secret journal, is the old yellow wallpaper covering the walls around her (Gilman 1997: 1f.). While the woman's condition worsens gradually over the course of the entries she makes in her secret journal, her growing isolation and inactivity make her start to see movement in the patterns and holes of the old wallpaper (Teichler 1984: 61, Gilman 1997: 1f.). The character becomes absorbed by what she thinks she sees, and begins to directly interact with the things she sees in the paper, until she rips the paper to shreds, and violently frees what she sees, and subsequently, also herself from captivity (Teichler 1984: 61, Gilman 1997:

As the girl continues on to grow up she is continually facing challenges with her confidence and thus affecting her emotionally and physically. For instance, one of the line states that “ she went to

At this point, the narrator finally discovers what the realities of life are. She also discovers deep within herself the reason for her feelings toward her parents at the funeral of Steve Gauley.

In the short story “Miss Brill”, the primary conflict is internal between herself: “But today she passed the baker’s boy, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time… But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying” (Mansfield 105). Miss Brill realizes she is no longer a part of the youth. She old, and now sees herself as isolated from the play she used to be part of. She “heard something crying” (Mansfield 105). This, results an internal conflict with herself of how she feels. Likewise, “The Yellow Wallpaper” also plays an internal conflict between herself: “I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition” (Gilman 473). The protagonist is living further away from society where she is treated as an individual, isolated by others, even her baby. She is given limited opportunities controlled by her husband and her brother as an attempt to do what’s best for her as a sick woman. They both force her to accept the idea of her own thoughts do not qualify reality, which represents the insanity of loneliness.

At first, she would like Michael to be honest in their relationship but then when he is, she doesn't want to hear the truth anymore. When he says that he likes looking at other women, he tells her that she "[doesn't] have to listen to [it]" (p.4) however, "[she] wants to" (p.4) listen to the truth. Once he reveals everything to his wife, she is heartbroken and doesn't want to hear "about how pretty [the women are]."(p.5) She wants him to keep everything "to himself" (p.5) because "[she's] not interested."(p.5) Their marriage is unstable.