Rising Conflicts in As For Me and My House and The Fire-Dwellers In any piece of literature, elements such as the use of plot, climax, and character development are needed in order to maintain a reader’s attention and curiosity. Another element that typically sparks a reader’s interest is the rising of conflict between characters, as this allows readers to empathize with the characters throughout their journeys. The idea of a continuing conflict between characters is a recurring theme throughout the novels, As For Me and My House, by Sinclair Ross, and The Fire-Dwellers, by Margaret Laurence. In each novel, there are hopeless and despondent wives, Mrs. Bentley and Stacey MacAindra, who have distant and unaffectionate husbands, …show more content…
Mrs. Bentley is passionate about playing the piano and has always dreamt of becoming a famous musician. However, she puts more time and effort into being with Philip, and in turn, her music career comes to a halt. This example is understood as Mrs. Bentley expresses her joy for music and declares, “The only thing that really mattered for [her] was the piano… All [she] wanted was [the] opportunity to work and develop [herself]… But he came along and the piano took second place” (Ross 20). Not only did piano take second place, but also, “instead of [practicing] in [her] spare time it was books now… For right from the beginning [she] knew that with Philip it was the only way” (Ross 20). Through the use of this example, it is clear that Mrs. Bentley forfeits something she values in order to please Philip – contributing to the notion of her role being to serve and to make him happy. Similarly to Mrs. Bentley, Stacey MacAindra is married, and has been for sixteen years to a man named is Clifford “Mac” MacAindra. Though Stacey does play an important role as a wife, her main concern, unlike that of Mrs. Bentley, is not to serve her husband. Rather, Stacey’s main role is to find herself during her midlife crisis and to cope with this issue as it negatively affects the relationship with her family and herself. Stacey was once a beautiful, young woman; unfortunately, with the crisis consuming her, she feels old, unattractive, and unwanted – ultimately
The home as a place of comfort does not exist for the narrator; companionship with her husband is lost. Her only real conversations occur on paper, as no one else speaks to her of anything other than her condition. She is stripped of her role as a wife, robbed of her role as a mother, and is reduced to an object of her husband's.
The brother and sister share closer relationships than they should , and their houses somewhat represent the lives they live. With both stories having an unexplainable ending , such as why the house crumbled at the end of “Fall of the House of Usher”
Stacey uses pathos as her main appeal. This rhetorical appeal is highly effective when appealing to family, as it provokes sympathy and empathy from loved ones. The author opens the letter with “My dear father-in-law.” Then throughout the story she gradually seems to become more affectionate towards him and ends the letter calling him her “dear Father” and signing the letter off with “your deeply afflicted daughter.” This is a subtle attempt that Stacy uses to persuade her father-in-law by making him see her as his blood relative. In the letter, Stacey illustrates how inopportune of a time that George, her husband, was taken
The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.
In order to pick up the slack of the other parent, both authors make sacrifices to ensure their children’s needs are met. Edelman feels like she was expected to reduce her work hours instead of her husband because of the gender roles forced upon parents in society today. Edelman became angry with the fact that she felt pressured to prioritize her husband’s career and give up her own career to care for their child. Edelman states “...there was something vaguely unsettling about feeling that my choice hadn’t been much of an actual choice”(51). Edelman also angrily states that the reason she was forced to give up her career was because “...he was ‘the husband’ and…his career took precedence...”(54). Edelman is angry at the fact that society made her believe her career was inferior to her husband’s. Bartels also makes sacrifices for his family. Bartels makes the sacrifices to take pressure off of his wife, who is constantly running their children around to daycare and
In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Gilman, both the main female characters are explored through their marriages, their inability to express themselves and the gender limitations of the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Curley’s Wife, in Of Mice and Men, and ‘Jane’ in The Yellow Wallpaper, are controlled by their husbands and the women are seen as inferior. This inferiority, in turn, prevents them from necessary self-expression and their actions against their husband’s wishes characterises them as disobedient. Ultimately, the death of Curley’s Wife and ‘Jane’s’ nervous breakdown highlights these two character’s extensively inferior positions and lack of power in their marriages. Many techniques were used
In both stories, each woman was put into a stereotypical role of being housewives. This was popular in history because women did not have much choice or option rather then stay home and cook, clean, take care of their children, etc. Both women were married but instead of appreciating their lives in a joyful perspective, they were oppressed by their living conditions. In both stories, there is a window scene mentioned. The window seems to have symbolism of freedom which is ironic, because in reality they were both trapped in unhappiness. Each time the characters looked through their windows, the outside view is described through the characters perspective in a optimistic and desirable tune, while staying
The father’s way of dealing with his inner issues is reflected by the way he distracts himself with hobbies of the women he loves. This illustrates how a sudden tragedy can influence someone’s lifestyle. In fact, before his first wife passed away he showed a lot of interest in art and when she died he was lost and devastated ,” (…) after mom died, my sister and I used to worry about his living alone. And he was lonely.We knew that after putting in his usual twelve-hours workday, he would return to the empty house (...) then read medical journals until it was time to go to sleep.”(16). This implies that
Despite differing story lines, Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, depict the same suffering; the isolation that women have been forced to endure throughout history. In the time period that all three characters were placed, it was culturally acceptable for wives to be dominated by their husbands; their responsibility revolving around the needs of their children and those of their spouse. Most women simply did not have a means or an idea of how to rebel against their husbands. The women in all three stories are protagonists who have poor relationships of emotional attachment with their spouses. While the main character of Gilman’s story endures multiple psychotic
Outcomes in life are diverse for Madame, like her ideas of materialistic pieces in comparison to her husband’s outlooks on important items. Guy emphasizes how Mme Loisel is not appreciating what she has in the right way as he uses juxtaposition to compare her to her husband, Mr. Loisel. A beginning example is the food that is set before them for dinner. Mr. Loisel seems to be very happy with his meal as he sits down and claims, ‘Ah! A good stew! There’s nothing I like better…’ (pg 190). But
The novel House of Sand and Fog, written by Andrew Dubus III, is a story about how society, events from the past and present situations can affect people’s persona, anima/animus, shadow and self which eventually influences their decisions about life. Dubus explores the conflict between two completely different people with opposite persona. Colonel Masoud Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family’s dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. These two characters are drawn by their competing desires to the same small house and domed by their tragic inability to
As the reader followed that plot of the novel, the main conflict is the person versus person, or the killing of each individual house guest against the
A Three Dog Life is about Abigail Thomas trying to cope with her husband’s traumatic head injury, that happened because she let Rich walk Harry alone one night; which makes him acts differently to the things that were so familiar to him. We read along as Thomas tries out new coping mechanism; like buying a new house, new dogs and buying paintings. The purpose of this essay is to take an analytical approach to how guilt is an important theme A Three Dog Life.
She is so naïve and adolescent that she leaves her worldly activities and gets ready to go out and spend time with her boyfriend. She gives him her possessions: her “labor” and “leisure” too (l. 7) for his politeness.
Mrs. Rowland, the protagonist, is portrayed as the stereotypical nagging wife. While a flat character, she is very realistic. Her level of diction implies her lack of education, she is also bitter towards her husband. Her bitterness is not unfounded. Alfred is of no help, "Heaven knows I do my part-and more-going out sewing every day while you play the gentleman and loaf around bar rooms with that good-for-nothing lot of artists from the Square" (Jacobs 1211). Mrs. Rowland's husband is adulterous and can not hold down a job. Mrs. Rowland loves her husband, although she does not like the way he treats her. She exhibited love by continually enabling him, paying the rent, providing food, and cleaning up after him. She regards Alfred's depression as laziness. "Not that I've got any doubts about your being lazy enough to stay in bed forever" (Jacobs 1211). After learning Alfred's lover Helen, is pregnant, her frustration and disappointments only intensify.