Summary In The Carterer By Margaret Carter

A particularly effective element of the production was the use of costume. The costumes exposed the time period, transporting the audience back to 1981, immediately involving me in the story. Costume represented the social class the characters belonged to. Mr and Mrs Lyons were rich and had a high social status, their costume established their character; Mr. Lyons was wearing a suit and Mrs. Lyons wore tights and uniform. In contrast, the Johnson family were living in poverty, and this is also shown through the usage of costume. I as audience felt empathy for Mrs Johnson as through costume I could see her financial struggle.

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

Since Lynn was a busy town of commerce and trade, the middle-class inhabitants were wealthy. The status of Margery?s father, John, several times mayor of Lynn, helped to instill Margery with self-respect. She was very much influenced by the people of Lynn?s concern with status and wealth: ?She had a very great envy of her neighbors that they should be as well arrayed as she.? In her Book, she even goes so far as to say that her marriage to businessman John Kempe did no justice to her ?worthy kindred? and was a socially-imbalanced relationship, although they both belonged to the same social class. This haughtiness and sense of pride are distinguishing features of Margery throughout her life.

When the Hoover family arrives to the pageant the notice that they are in for a treat because they experience culture shock. Culture shock is the shock individuals experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and no longer depend on their own assumptions about life (Henslin, pg. 49, 2014). Olive is special because she is not the average “beauty queen” with her special features such as her pale skin and plump body, but when she arrives the the pageant she experiences the culture shock with the other contestants. The other contestants have makeup caked on, perfect teeth, and bedazzled dresses from head to toe. Olive on the other hand has no make up, a simple ponytail, and a short cut modern dress. Olive and her family realizes that they are no longer in small town Arizona and that these girls are in another world compared to Olive. Based off appearances, actions, and

The pain and trauma that stem from Esther’s illness have warped her view of the world around her. However, this symbol also represents the pressures put on women in the 1950s to be what was considered ideal for women during this era. The bell jar “suggests more than Esther’s inner alienated world”, it also “signifies society which destroys Esther” and “symbolizes ‘scientific punishment’ for non-conformists” (Evans 105). She “must combat the additional alienation of being an aspiring woman in an era of strict limitations for women” which only hinders her further from her goals in life (Axelrod). While many women at the time planned on marrying and settling down, Esther does not view these expectations for women in the same way and instead wishes to be her own independent person. While working as the guest editor of Mademoiselle, a fashion magazine, Esther “suffocates under the bell jar forced on her by a competitive, male-oriented society”(Evans 105). During the fifties women were not expected to have successful careers in general and the male dominant world held a high level of competition; while trying to come out on top in this society Esther ends up cracking under the intense pressure. Representing both the stifling social limits set on women and the protagonist’s dismal mental state, the bell jar is a robust symbol in this novel.

The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

The power struggle between normality and abnormality amid her home is distinct throughout the story. Normality is the state of being “normal” or to have the likeness of the majority while abnormality is the opposite. Jeannette’s parents’ abnormality and their nonconformity holds as the family’s way of life in their home, whereas the children’s struggle to be accepted by their peers and their need for normality oppose that of the parents’. One of the first times the reader can see Jeannette fighting against the abnormality and nonconformity within her home is when the Walls family is living in West Virginia on Little Hobart Street. “I kept looking of other ways to make improvements...A layer of yellow paint, I realized, would completely transform our dingy gray house. It would look, at least on the outside, almost like the houses other people lived in” (Jeannette 156). Rex had brought home yellow paint along with a few paint brushes, and Jeannette thought of the idea of painting their home with it. No one in her family wanted to help her, so by herself she painted the deck yellow. Unfortunately, the paint job was never finished, and it only made the house look worse and family stand out more, rather than blending them in with everyone else like Jeannette had planned. Jeannette’s need for normality can be felt by the reader, and how hard she is working for it with little

Also, the grandmother seems to care less about poverty and the sufferings of lower class people. For example, when the old women spots a poor Negro child in the street naked without any pants, she says, "Wouldn't that make a picture now?” (A Good Man…). The author connects the grandmother to the real world where a lot of people pay more attention to their outward appearance to impress others than to beautify their inner self first. Also, the family in the story has a car in an era where having a car was perceived as a higher class possession. Although the grandmother shows a prejudice behavior towards the little Negro child with her comments, O’Connor mean to emphasize the class difference that exists in the American society and the negligence and the lack of assistance from higher class to less fortunate class.

When Carver mentioned “Marta no longer saw just groups of carefree people inside the apartments; at times there were even some businesses where the employees, in black or blue aprons, were sitting at desks in long rows” (Buzzati 2). During her fall, she observed the shift between the wealthy and those who are impoverished. The building as a whole depicted class division where the rich were dominant known at the top of the hierarchy and others working hard placed at the bottom.

Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering” (Fitzgerald, 28). While being in contrast with Jordan, a white wearing, statuesque, professional golf player who is a very attractive individual and wealthy which automatically puts her in the high class. This example provides us with the knowledge of how the structure of class is formed. Myrtle is associated with being an outcast, while Jordan is popular and favoured. Therefore, Myrtle did not have the opportunity to the American Dream and now is treated differently, especially by Tom

The Jackson environment was featured by a rough social structure and certain rules of behavior. Rich, color, family background and reputation specified your social status and your relationship with others in the society. Although the racism had no legal foundation, it was hard for color people to move between classes or make their way into high social circles. If color people do Any act of rebellion could mean a lot of social problems and complete isolation in the community. This would cause very bad consequences especially in terms of employment or marriage considerations. We obviously touch this through the character of Celia and her relation with Hilly and the Junior, of which Hilly is the leader. Hilly considers Celia as “white trash” because she comes from a poor area of Mississippi called Sugarditch. She disregards Celia’s offers to help with arranging a Donations interest. Celia is a good and somewhat simple girl who just wants to be one of the Jackson women. We see that when at the benefit one of the Junior League member’s comments on Celia’s because she wears revealing cloths. She says “bosoms are for bedrooms and breastfeeding. Not for occasions with dignity. I want her to cover. Them. Up”. Hilly also thinks to herself that Celia does not have the “gentility” to join the Junior League which consists of respectable women in the community”. These instances expose how Celia was judged according to her look and background instead of her personality. The setting is important to make it easy for readers to understand the inequality that a lot of women faced during this 1960’s

Mrs. Richard Skinner’s dress is very form fitting and looks quite confining, this is how most women dressed at this time. This is symbolic of the confining lifestyle that Mrs. Richard Skinner and many other women of this era lived. Copley was notorious for illustrating wealth through clothing pieces and fabrics. It is evident that Mrs. Richard Skinner is dressed in a lavish gown which demonstrates that the subject is indeed wealthy. This technique allows anyone looking at this painting to pick up on this queue, even without knowing the subject’s true identity.

The author of A Pair of Silk Stockings explores female roles based on what other people believe due to stereotypes. In this short story Mrs. Sommers finds $15 which is a sizable about of money to her in New York. She and her family are on the poorer side of New York. At first Mrs. Sommers has no clue on what she should do the money she had just come to. She is thinking about her children and that they could use new skirls because she had seen a beautiful new pattern in a market window, or caps for her boys and sailor-caps for her girls (Chopin 1). She thought of them due to the fact that that is what mothers and wives do in the 1800’s, they but their children and husband before thinking of themselves. She thought back to the time when she wasn’t

Already we can tell that the family belongs in a high social class because of the look of the house but to reassure the audience the director introduces the family wearing high class attire. The father wears a tailored black suit with glasses and a tie, the mother is in a light pink suit with heels and a red derby hat on, the son wears a button down white dress shirt with suspenders and black slacks while the girl wears a baby pink dress and a bow. Not only does the choice of clothing reveal the social status of the family it reveals the gender roles each member plays. The women are expected to wear the pink attire while the men are expected to wear the business work attire. It is a social norm for them, which can also tie into the family role each