Summary Of ' Eliza And Her Monsters '

Sophie introduces herself in the story as a nerdy, outcasted teenage girl, “I always thought of myself as a free-floating one-celled amoeba, minding my own business. The other kids at school were all parts of a larger organism. . . Not particularly noticed, definitely not appreciated, just an amoeba swimming around aimlessly” (9). Sophie feels as if she does not belong where she grew up, she has always felt like she was on the outside. Her father, a drug dealer and felon, left her mother when she was first born. Because of her extreme self-esteem issues, Sophie blames herself for her father leaving. She recalls what she believes happened when she was born, “When Mom was a teenager, I started making her belly fat. And then my dad left. And then I was born too soon. And he came back to get us.

All fame begins when you do something noticeable. For example, actors and actresses build upon their careers and reputations by achieving excellence in their personal goals, as well as perfecting their public performance.

“Story of an Hour” uses Louise Mallard’s repressed life as a wife to elucidate how repression can lead to bottled up depression. Louise Mallard understands the “right” way for women to behave, but her internal thoughts and feelings are anything but correct. This is first illustrated by the initial reaction to her husband’s death, where she cries instead of feeling numb, as she suspects other women would do. The death of her husband acts as a catalyst to alleviate her depression that rooted in her marriage. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to Louise’s heart problem, which shows the extent to which she believes her marriage has trapped her. The author of the story gives a vague description of Mallard’s heart condition just simply calling it a “heart problem” (Choplin 452). This vague description shows how her “heart problem” is both physical and

All fame begins when you do something noticeable. For example, actors and actresses build upon their careers and reputations by achieving excellence in their personal goals, as well as perfecting their public performance.

And I will crawl in and make room for myself. My heart can be the one that beats. And hers has stopped” (Gibbons, 1988, p. 10). This scene is very revealing of many systems’ and subsystems’ transactions. On a physical and emotional microsystem level we see Ellen open her individual boundaries and allow an adult to nurture her in a sense as a child needs to be nurtured. Also the heart beating for her mother and then her mother passing away besides her is a traumatic event that Ellen struggles with; and goes on to carry that burden of guilt. Although she felt fear to seek help from the threats of her father, she felt an internal struggle to protect and save her mother as she had already assumed the role as her protector. When she failed to do so it had lasting impacts that would linger and resurface later on with the death of her grandmother.

A celebrity is not a person known for his/her talent or achievement, but an individual recognized for his/her reputation created by the media. The phase of stardom is slippery, and media may choose to represent celebrities varying from exaggerated admiration to mockery. The three texts chosen, movie "Sunset Boulevard", feature article "Over the Hilton" and television show "Celebrity Uncensored Six" are texts presenting different perception of celebrities than their usual images - either corrupted by the encircling media, overloads oneself with self-indulgence, or just mocks celebrity in a broad spectrum. Such media items empower and impresses the audience by perceiving celebrities as people who pay the price of privacy to gain well

I'm so excited,” I lie again. When will the truth ever escape my lips? I walk to Rachel's house stunned. I hear the screaming even before I put my hand on the door handle. I bolt into the mansion, frantically looking for my wife. The screaming worsens, impairing my hearing, like knives being thrown at my head. The noise is coming from upstairs. In a panic, I sprint up to our room. As soon as a come to the doorway, a pungent odor hits my nose. A turn my head to the left. There, I see Rachel. Crumpled on the bathroom floor, like a used piece of paper. Blood covers the bathroom floor, looking like a red swamp. The blue tiles are masked by the sea of red. I walk over to her tentatively. I examine the bathroom. My eardrums feel as though they are about to burst. My eyes meet the toilet. There's something in it. The white basin is white no more. Something is floating in the toilet. I realize what it is. I reach for the phone as quick as lightning. I practically punch the buttons in the phone to call the doctor. “Doctor! Doctor! You need to come to our house right now! My wife is losing blood and my baby, my baby!” I scream into the phone. The doctor attempts to calm me down, but it is no use. He will come as soon as possible. Rachel looks beaten, all of the energy and power taken out of her. I dare to cross the bathroom floor to Rachel. My tennis shoes stick to the floor like glue. I tenderly touch her. I carry her to the bath to wash her off. The

Then, her father picks her up, wraps her arms around him, and her father bolts toward the emergency exit door and out of the hospital. He and Jeanette get into the car where her mother and brother, Brian, were waiting for them. This anomalous event, and others like it, is what makes this book an excellent read for students. These events show experiences that are rather unusual to many students and exposure to literature that talks about these things can be interesting to read as well as eye-opening for the

(…) Further, because achieving money, fame, and image is often contingent on engaging in nonautonomous activities, emphasizing such goals may detract from a sense of authenticity and result in lower well-being. (13)

When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the

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 tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

Fame comes in two forms. Fame as a result of what one has accomplished,

Through symbolically and ironically suggesting that gender definitions delimit the feminine self, the opening of “The Story of an Hour” hints of the tragedy that pervades the tale.  Because of Mrs. Mallard’s “heart trouble,” her sister and her husband’s friend rush to her side to break the news of her husband’s death in a gentle manner (644).  On a literal level, Louise Mallard’s condition suggests that she has a congenital

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