“And oh! how often I’ve wished I could go back and recapture the glory of those precious thirteen months when it was only me!” – Carolin Parkhurst, “Unwell”. The story “Unwell” by Carolin Parkhurst shares a common subject with many other short stories – “sibling rivalry”. This subject is displayed through the lens that is the main character and narrator, Arlette. Arlette is many things, but caring is not one. Arlette is the demeaning, self-pitying, self-centred older sister of Yvonne. Arlette’s multifarious negative character traits deeply affect her relationship (or lack thereof) with her sister.
It is my belief that the main thing hindering Arlette’s relationship with Yvonne is her intentional demeaning nature. Arlette’s
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This is especially evident on page eight of the story when Arlette says, “When Stephen was lying in his hospital bed, two hours away from dying, he asked me if he could have a few minutes to say good-bye to [Yvonne] alone, and you know what I said? No, I said no. Simple as that.” Arlette’s self-centredness is demonstrated throughout the story and is paramount to the lack of a relationship with her sister. Arlette’s self-centredness widely contributes to her sister always thinking that if she wants to date someone, than Arlette will try to walk all over her and end-up going out with him. This is especially evident when Yvonne tried to date Stephen. When Yvonne brought Stephen home for dinner with her family, Arlette consistently implied that Yvonne did not deserve a boyfriend. This happened until finally, Arlette went on a picnic with Stephen and “stole” him from Yvonne.
Arlette’s negative character traits are destroying her relationship with her sister Yvonne. Her main destructive character traits include her demeaning nature which makes Yvonne feel like she is not worthy of a boyfriend. Another main negative character trait is Arlette’s self-pity. Her self-pity deters Yvonne from wanting to help Arlette. Arlette’s self-centredness makes a competing environment that makes it impossible for Yvonne to get approval from her sister. Arlette and Yvonne do not have much of a relationship. Their relationship is
Throughout her early childhood, she ignores her father's drunken escapades, and thinks of him as a loving father and excellent teacher of the wild. It isn't until her junior year of high school that she realizes the indisputable flaws her father has. She resents Dad's drinking and how he constantly lets her and the rest of the family down yet never openly admits it or allows his flaws to be discussed. Jeannette also begins to resent her mother, whom she’s never been close to. Some cause of her resentment includes her mom’s refusal to hold down a job long enough to provide her kids with a stable food supply, especially since Rex won’t be providing like he says he will. This resentment eventually motivates her to move away from her parents and Welch. She ends up in New York City with her sister Lori in which she focuses on her studies and becomes a successful journalist. Jeannette is a natural forgiver and it shows even when she moves away from her parents, but this doesn’t stop her from being haunted by her past and with her transition from poverty into the upper-middle class. By the end of the novel, Jeannette is a symbol of the resilience and
In this scene Mrs Lyons is very desperate to get her own way, she is
Connie does not want to be the nice and innocent pretty girl. She wants to be known for being very sexual. In the story she makes fun of her sister June because she is very modest and not sexual and causes conflict with their family. Also June is overweight twenty-four years old and still living at home. But she also does chores and does them without complaining to her parents. While Connie is a way from home she has two totally different ways of acting. Be that as it may, Arnold friend ‘s landing in her home drives her two sides to consolidate fiercely. As it were, Connie is not completely sexual until Arnold's interruption into her home until then; her sexuality was something outside of her "actual" self, the self that she permitted her family to see. Arnold also has a friend named Ellie. While Arnold drives up to Connie’s house Ellie stays in the car and she listens to music while Arnold speaks to Connie. Also Connie’s mother shows a large amount of frustration towards her and the way she acts and dresses. Connie and her mother fight constantly. But towards the end of the story when Connie is attacked my Arnold she cries out to her
Jeannette is the narrator of her memoir, telling her story from age three into adulthood. As a child she is adventurous, wild-hearted, and Dad 's favorite. Jeannette, a middle sibling, is closer to younger brother Brian than her older sister Lori: Brian shares Jeannette 's love of the outdoors, while Lori is more a bookworm. As Jeannette matures, her feelings toward Dad and Mom change. She resents Dad 's drinking and how he constantly lets her and the rest of the family down yet never openly admits it or allows his flaws to be discussed. Jeannette also resents Mom 's refusal to hold down a job long enough to provide her kids with a stable food supply. These resentments make her more and more willful and independent. Eventually she scrapes
Claudia expresses again and again how marginalized she and her sister perceived themselves to be, "Adults do not talk to us - they give us directions" (10). When Claudia thinks back to a childhood illness she suffered, she remembers her mother's irritation at finding her sick in bed. Claudia questions the reliability of her perceptions of pain and confusion, "But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Love...eased up into that cracked window" (12). Claudia's mother's irritation is tempered with compassion; she coats Claudia's phlegmy chest with salve and "hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the
Even in her state of anger she cannot help but once again be the restrained and subdued one in their relationship. Despite all of the happiness she has found with Rochester she still cannot bring herself to stay in a relationship in which she sacrifices part of herself, because she doesn’t know how to reconcile her need feel like she belongs and is taken care of while at the same time remaining uncorrupted.
Throughout the book Bruno's idea of his friendship with his sister changed, the protagonist also recreated his friendship with the “The Hopeless Case” - pg 21. In the beginning of the novel he is cruel and optimistic about his sister's life worthiness. This is portrayed on page 21 -
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is essentially the “coming of age” story of Catherine Morland, a sympathetic yet naïve young girl who spends some time away from home at the impressionable age of seventeen. As Catherine matures in the town of Bath and at Northanger Abbey, she learns to forgo immature childhood fantasies in favor of the solid realities of adult life, thus separating falsehood from truth. This theme is expressed in a couple of ways, most obviously when Catherine’s infatuation with Gothic novels causes her to nearly ruin her relationship with Henry Tilney: her imagination finally goes too far, and she wrongly suspects General Tilney of murdering his late wife. The theme is less apparent
The Other Sister is about a family with a sibling that has a developmental disability also known as mildly mentally retardation (MMR), mild developmental disability, or mild intellectual disorder (MID). Carla Tate is our main character that has MMR as a disability. She is a young women, twenty-four years old, with a slender but beautiful appearance. Carla has just graduated from a special education boarding school and is returning home to her family. Carla’s mother (Elizabeth Tate) is overbearingly protective, does not appreciate all of the abilities that Carla has acquired. Her father (Bradley Tate) is a recovering alcoholic who is sympathetic and supportive of Carla, who at the same time has to deal with his domineering wife. Carla has
(Forster 181). As a sister looking out for what’s best, I understand that this announcement of his proposal may come as a shock and Helen suggests he does not really truly love her. Helen fears that Margaret will start to be like Mrs. Wilcox and become “gruffer, more downright, and inclined to patronize the more foolish virgin” (Forster 160). Here, we see the true feelings of Helen as she becomes disconnected with her sister and feels anger towards her sister’s fiancé, Henry. Helen punishes her sister by disconnecting herself from Margaret’s life and moving far away; out of sight, out of mind. Unsatisfied with the way things were left after telling Helen about the engagement and their continuous arguments on the subject, Margaret asks to meet up at Howard’s End where they start reminiscing about all the strong family bonding experiences they had years ago. By talking and laughing about the good old days, the sisters were able to reunite and rebuild that family connection they had lost. It is evident in this realistic example between to loving sisters’ causes family bonds and connections to forever remain. Although they may be damaged due to disagreements, these close relationships can never be broke. John Colmer mentions in his critique, “Marriage and Personal Relationships in Forster’s Fiction, that, “Personal relationships triumph between the two Schelgel sisters,
The story I chose to analyze is “Why I Live at the P.O.” by Eudora Welty. The author, Eudora Wetly, is originally from Mississippi from a prosperous family, she was born in 1909 and passed away in 2001.During her early days she worked at small places involved with writing until she launched her literary career. ‘Why I Live at the P.O’ is about sibling rivalry and favoritism among family. My thesis states that this story shows a good example of favoritism among families and good insight from the outcast.
Creating a haven from the cruel outside world, families ideally provide protection and support for each of their members. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, however, bitterness grows between the Earnshaws and the Lintons. Within these two families, siblings rival for power and parents fail to fulfill their roles as caregivers. The intertwining relationships of the Earnshaws and the Lintons are marked by physical abuse, degradation, and emotional negligence. These reduce each of the family members’ life to a lonely and meaningless journey though the cold and misty moors.
She flirts with many men and young adults throughout the play, which makes the reader feel a lack of sympathy for her as the men she desired ended up becoming major contributors to her eventual downfall, in particular Stanley.
My Sister’s Marriage” by Cynthia Marshall Rich portraits characters that have many family problems. The father Doctor Landis is a total control freak. He decides every little things in his two daughters, Olivia and Sarah Ann, life. The restrictions that the father puts upon on his two daughters have different consequence on both. Olivia, the oldest daughter, starts having rebellious feeling due to suffocated restrictions, while, Sarah Ann, the youngest daughter, starts to internalize the restrictions and value her limited opportunities. Everywhere in the story, we can see that, the daughters pass through so many intestinal conflicts that result in either imprisonment or liberation. Since the father is so controlling, he has instructed his daughters to have a perverted view of love which emotionally demolished and imprisons one,
Concerning her love affairs, it must be mentioned why she got involved in so many relationships, even with a seventeen-year-old student, resulting in the loss of her good reputation and dismissal from a high school. The reason is simple: she has longed for happiness and love. She has been trying to find another man to be happy. She herself describes it: „After the death of Allan - intimacies with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with.“ (Williams 118). However, when she comes to her sister Stella and her husband Stanley, she keeps lying both to herself and to them. She pretends to be nothing but a respectable and honourable woman. She tries to persuade them that she is flawless, although her pretentious refinement looks