Sweetgum Slough Summary

Anne Tyler’s “Teenage Wasteland” is a story about a modern day family of four and the relationship issues they experienced with each other. The story is presented in third person limited; however, the reader is shown much about how the mother of the family feels and the troubles she experiences in her relationships with her husband and children, primarily her son Donny. Daisy is portrayed as a mother who worries that she had failed Donny because of his continual disobedience toward the authority figures in his life. Donny is a teen who constantly misbehaves in school and in the story is described as “noisy, lazy, and disruptive; always fooling around with his friends, and would not respond in class.” (188). These behaviors lead Donny to

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Two characters, Elisa Allen and Mary Teller, struggle with the idea of being accepted into the society of the 1930s. Women’s rights were not fully accepted in the 1930s, and these two characters were set in the common day view of men and women. In the 1930s, “[Society has] assigned to white women such roles as housewife, secretary, PTA chairman, and schoolteacher. Black women can now be schoolteachers, too, but they are most prominently assigned to such domestic roles as maid, cook, waitress, and babysitter” (Chisholm 123). These assigned roles have impacted women around the world, including the two characters in these short stories - “The Chrysanthemums” and “The White Quail”. Not being activists in women’s rights, these women conformed to society and lived their lives as any typical housewife in the 1930s. Their passions and choices during this time affected their way of living and relationships. The two stories reflect similarities of the women’s love for gardening and lonely marriages, but also reflect their different viewpoints on the world they live in.

Helen is a young, revolutionary-minded person who feels contained by the walls of her own house. She attempts, at first, to escape in small ways. First, she suddenly quits her job playing piano for the church without explanation. Then she drops out of school claiming “The white man’s education is not for me” (73.) Finally, she gets in a fight with her sister, Rosetta, and leaves the house.

In addition to the characterization of Joy-Hulga O’Connor’s depiction of Mrs. Hopewell creates irony that begins with her names. Like joy, Mrs. Hopewell, is full of the same limiting perceptions of those around her. Demonstrated by the belief that country people are “good”, or the “salt of the earth.” In much the same way Joy’s impairment results in Mrs. Hopewell’s perpetual assumption that joy is like a child. She regards her with

Comparing Hope Leslie or Early Times in Massachusetts and The Scarlett Letter is interesting because at first glance both novels don’t appear to have much in common aside from having a female protagonist and taking place within Puritan society of early America. (keep but not as first sentence). However, despite obvious differences between both novels such as the character presentation of the female protagonists in Hope Leslie who range from the free-spirited Hope Leslie, obedient Puritan Esther, and character of Magawisca as a noble but proud Native American contrasts with the Hester Prynne’s presentation as a shamed but deeply contemplative woman in The Scarlett Letter. The different purposes all these characters each serve in their respective stories begins to show commonality in that Hope Leslie’s Hope, Esther, and Magawisca and The Scarlett Letter’s Hester Prynne all have to overcome the adversity and social expectations with Puritan society so they can follow their hearts and do what they feel is right by relying on their wit, intelligence, and inner strength. By examining how both Hope Leslie and Hester Prynne overcome the challenges they face in their respective Puritain socities it will be easier to observe how these novels presentation of their female protagonist illustrates the gender politics of each text.

“Imagination is the key ingredient to overcoming fear and doubt.” Throughout “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne tends to emphasize the intensity of Pearl’s imagination by describing the way Pearl saw the world around her and by talking about the way the people who noticed her vivid imagination, referred to her as a “witch-child”. In “The Scarlet Letter”, Pearl grows up secluded from the rest of the children in the New World. She learns to entertain herself and keep herself company by using her imagination. This is one big example of Pearl overcoming the hardships that she grew up with. As the book progresses, and as Pearl gets older, we see her overcome more hardships she is challenged with to create a strong, independent young girl. The poem provided written by Emily Dickinson comes to show how overcoming Pearl’s hardships led her to blossom from a strong, independent young girl, into an even stronger, successful woman.

Good Morning everyone. My first text is Tim Winton’s novel, “That Eye The Sky” The focal point of this book is a story through the eyes of the narrator Morton (Ort) Flack. Secondly, the poem I will also describe is St Patricks College by Peter Skrzynecki. I will discuss through the use of literary techniques how the environment around the main characters affects their Identity. My thesis is; “The need to belong to an environment and community shapes our behavior attitudes and actions and our general personality”

James' manipulation of appearances in Daisy Miller as well as other character's notions of these appearances provides us with a novella of enigmatic and fascinating characters. Daisy, the most complicated of these ambiguities, is as mysterious as she is flirtatious. James gives her a carefully constructed enigmatic quality that leaves the reader wondering what her motivations were and who she truly was. He structures the novella in such a way as to stress the insights that the supporting characters provide into Daisy's character, weather accurate or erroneous. Despite their questionable reliability, they allow James to make commentary on both European and American cultures and social class.

Life in the Iron Mills is a novella that is hard to classify as a specific genre. The genre that fits the most into this novella is realism, because of the separation of classes, the hard work that a person has to put into their every day life to try and make a difference, and the way society influences the actions of people and their relationships. However, no matter what genre is specifically chosen, there will be other genres present that contradict the genre of choice. While the novella shows romanticism, naturalism, and realism, this essay is specifically centered around realism. The ultimate theme in Rebecca Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills is the separation of classes and gender. It is the separation of classes when the people in the

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

These characters are drawn together by the suicide of their neighbor and friend, Mary-Alice Young, whose calm, composed tones steer the narrative and offer an elevated view from which the truths, dark secrets, and domestic struggles of Wisteria Lane are uncovered. The stories of the

The narrator construes the collapse of Hervey’s comfortable life in terms of the precarious dichotomy between the very essence of his experience represented by “the novelty of real feelings, of fundamental feelings that know nothing of creed, class, or education” and appearance represented by “the sentiments which he knew that […] he ought to experience” (131). Hervey immediately redefines the opposition as “the inexcusable truth and the valid pretences” (131). The redefinition establishes a correspondence, on one hand, between “the inexcusable truth” and ahistorical essence, which is marked by the effacement of all distinctions imposed by “creed, class, or education” (131) and, on the other, between “the valid pretences” and the conventional

Edith Wharton presents two memorable characters in her novel, Ethan Frome. The reader is presented with Mattie Silver who is young, and good-natured, and Zeena Frome, who is a bitter hypochondriac seven years her husband’s senior. Upon a first inspection, Zeena Frome and Mattie Silver of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome seem to be extreme opposites in every respect, but upon closer scrutiny, one finds though they are indeed different in character, though they eventually share great similarities. Zeena and Mattie’s differences in appearance and character, but similarity of fate, all contribute to the theme of the novel which is that one cannot escape the social class one is born in.

Second character appearances to analyze here is Sarah Lemon (17)–an American teenager, who also reflect a living of American Individualism values. In the beginning of the story, it mentioned in the text, “Sarah Lemon is one of those voices.” (2012:3) Also, assumed as one of the representatives where the word ‘voices’ could be implied self-expression and freedom to pour ideas. Sarah’s journey in life is relatively new to compare with Victor who lived longer. But the point is both of them are in the same categorized regard to the value of Individualism, and the difference is depending on the context to achieve goals that they chase. Relate with that, education became the dominant thing to learned and determine result of how she behaves to herself, family and society.