White Cottage Essay

The Haunting of Hill House is a novel containing many characters who possess childlike qualities. Eleanor, the main character, had her childhood stolen and therefore acts the most childlike. Eleanor’s job was to care for her ill mother, which resulted in her missing out on vital socialization along with her chance to enjoy her young life. The references to the characters and their childish behavior begins fairly early in the novel. There have been suspicions of a house being haunted, named Hill House, so a Doctor named Dr. Montague decides to look for participants to occupy the house for the summer. When the characters arrive at Hill House in order to participate in the experiment, Eleanor and another important character named Theodora immediately connect. The two girls

As Mary’s story unravels, she continues to suffer long hours of work, starvation, and separation from her family. She reads her holy bible and is constantly reminding herself that God is with her and will see her through these trials. Her spirits are lifted her master agrees to sell Mary to her husband, and her mistress begins the journey with her, but before long the mistress decides not to go any further and they turn back. Not long after, she starts to loose hope that she will ever be reunited with her family. She becomes discouraged, and her spirit

Mary begins the story as a doting housewife going through her daily routine with her husband. She is content to sit in his company silently until he begins a conversation. Everything is going as usual until he goes “ slowly to get himself another drink” while telling Mary to “sit down” (Dahl 1). This shocks Mary as she is used to getting things for him. After downing his second drink, her husband coldly informs her that he is leaving her and the child. This brutal news prompts the first change in Mary, from loving wife to emotionless and detached from everything.

African American racial tension has decreased drastically, since the fifties our country has leaps and bounds towards equality. James Baldwin wrote Stranger in the Village, and he wrote about his experience living in a small Swiss village and how he was able to evaluate the American society and its issues of race. Baldwin specifically focused on African American racial issues. Baldwin makes arguments about how race is treated much different in Europe, he also argued how there are still a lot of problems with American society that need to be changed. I agree with Baldwin's thoughts however this essay is outdated and isn't completely relevant to our society today; however some of the broader ideas are.

After an extended period of mourning, her father asked her why she would not remove her veil, for surely "the woman...led you into wickedness. How long will you mourn her, who deserves no mourning?" to which the girl replied, "It is my own...sin that I mourn." From then on she slunk about in rags and with ashes covering her face, forgotten by most everyone, and always sitting by the hearth, refusing to wash up, for she was "glad to be humble before God and men."

When Sethe first meets Beloved, she welcomes her with a suspiciously large magnitude. Furthermore, it is clear that Sethe never revealed her past experiences to Denver, yet the moment Beloved asks about her lost earrings, it was “the first time she had heard anything about her(Sethe’s) mother’s mother”(61). This proves that Beloved, and not anyone else, is pulling Sethe to the past, by making her recollect of her days as a slave. In addition,“it is clear why she holds on to you(Sethe), but I just can’t see why you holding on to her,” Paul mentioned(67). This shows how Paul realizes that Sethe has taken in Beloved without much reasoning, and when Beloved hums a song that Sethe happened to make up, Sethe fully but blindly embraces Beloved as family. In fact, she “had gone to bed smiling,” anxious to “unravel the proof for the conclusion she had already leapt to”(181). This shows how consumed by Beloved she is.

To start, Mary carries the reader on the journey toward recovery by exhibiting enjambment. She states, “Here is the endless wet thick cosmos, the center of everything- the nugget of dense sap, branching vines, the dark burred faintly belching bogs.” As she approaches the thought of redefining herself, it is as though she cannot turn back. Mary unveils to the reader her refuge from the

The story begins as Nathaniel Hawthorne lays down the setting and describes the house of the seven-gables and the story of its creation. The house is old and overrun by moss weeds and bushes, but the greatest aspect is the gigantic tree in the front of the house that seems to grow in size as it feeds off the misery of the inhabitants and the decay of the house. The very land that the house was built on was stolen from Matthew Moule. Since Colonel Pyncheon liked the location he helped accuse Matthew Moule of witchcraft and had him hung from the gallows pole. At his death, Matthew Moule curses Colonel Pyncheon saying, 'God will give him blood to drink!" One hundred and sixty years ago, when Colonel

The opening paragraph of the story describes how peaceful the dead woman looked in her bed before her children could say the final goodbye to their loving mother. Her facial features looked calm, and her long white hair was carefully arranged as though she wanted to leave this world as beautiful and blameless as her life was. At the beginning of the story her character was introduced as a "sweet soul that lived in that body," who managed to raise two successful children alone by "arming them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without weakness, and duty, without compromise."

The novel’s structure starts off with an event or more specifically a death that occurs early that sets the tone and subject for the rest of the story that follows later on in thirty years. Colonel Pyncheon is killed by Matthew Maule with a curse that is put on the Colonel and his family. "God," said the dying man, pointing his finger, with a ghastly look, at the undismayed countenance of his enemy,—"God will give him blood to drink!" This quote is the scene where Matthew lays the curse from god on Pyncheon and his family with the words, “God will give him blood to drink!” This turn of events occurs a great deal of time before the actual story of the The House of

Through character development, the story also portrays the theme of escaping the past. Sethe’s actions are influenced heavily by her dead child, Beloved. When the “human” form of Beloved arrives while sleeping

Sethe begins to nurture her children, only for her children to have a growing fear that Sethe would kill them one day, enacting her children to distance themselves. Due to Sethe mother’s abandonment, Sethe in fact has never been a “daughter” and the love she displays, Paul D. describes as “too thick” (193) causes resentment from her children. As Sethe undergoes mental and physical abuse from Beloved, causing her strong personality to wither away and becoming fully dependent on Beloved, Sethe gives herself to Beloved, “[a]nything she wanted she got” (283). This is a story not to be passed on for Sethe, she allowed herself to be swallowed up by her own inability to move past her dreadful memories at Sweet Home. The past, “Beloved” began to slowly creep on her, draining away the strong woman she once was. Sethe always tried to nurture her child, the way her mother never nurtured her. However, in the end when she becomes dependent on Beloved, she becomes old and weak. Yet, her positive development occurs when Paul D tells her that she, herself is the most important thing and finally then Sethe moves on.

 When Sethe finally arrives at 124 Bluestone Road, she is greeted with her loving mother-in-law, Jenny Whitlow, known to her as Baby Suggs.  A second healing takes place when Baby Suggs tends to her mutilated body.  “She led Sethe to the keeping room and bathed her in sections, starting with her face…Sethe dozed and woke to the washing of her hands and arms…When Sethe’s legs were done, Baby looked at her feet and wiped them lightly.  She cleaned between Sethe’s legs…”(Morrison, 93).  The methodical washing of Sethe’s body emphasizes the sympathy and love that fills Baby Suggs’ heart.  Putting her trust in Baby Suggs for the relief of physical and emotional torment, is the only way Sethe is able to relieve herself of her haunted past and suffering body.  Baby Suggs knows as well as Sethe, the haunting miseries of black men and women who have been brought low by slavery, yet she urges her daughter-in-law to keep going and be strong.

Feeling no regret at all, she then began flirting with the man back who was giving her the attention she always dreamed of. Being interested in the stranger, “Her breast swelled passionately “[…]” Kneeling there, her hand went out toward his legs in the greasy black trousers. Her hesitant fingers almost touched the cloth” (Steinbeck 18). The man then realized what she was doing, but did not react; instead he acted as professional as well as he could. After his departure, she then felt a depression knowing that she might have lost her one chance of happiness. As her husband is taking her out to dinner later on in the night, she asks Henry questions about his hobbies of watching fights and realized that she never had anyone as interested of her gardening skills as much as the departed man did. She felt that at this moment, her dream was then put on hold once more, so her shadow of loneliness and emptiness took over. Her shadow was revealed towards the man who gave the attention she wanted from her husband. She no longer hid or neglect her shadows because she realize what made her happy and went for it in order to fill her

With Beloved’s arrival and back into Seth’s life, Sethe also feels the need of going back into the memory of Baby Suggs, her mother in law. Baby Suggs held religious gatherings at a place called the clearing, where she taught her followers to love their voices, bodies and minds. However, after Sethe’s act of infanticide, Baby Suggs stops preaching and retreats to a sick bed to die. Accompanied by Denver and Beloved, Sethe feels the need to go to the clearing where Baby Suggs used to preach. “Baby Suggs’ long distance love was equal to any skin- close love she had known. The desire, let alone the gesture, to meet her needs was good enough to lift her spirits to the place where she could take the next step (pg 112).” In this section the memory of Baby Suggs also comes onto the surface, making Sethe want to remember her death by the presence of Beloved.