Who Is Wise Old Woman Retold By Yoshiko Uchida?

She came to live with the Fromes after her father died. Women at this time stay at home and take care of the house.

In this short story, the character of the Narrators Gran, helps convey the old prejudice views of her generation. The narrators grandmother has the belief that you should be friends with people based on where they come from and how they look, unfortunately for Mary Moon, she does not fit in with the character description of a person the Gran would appreciate her granddaughter being friends with. The quote "the lassie takes the milk in when she comes back at night" allows us to understand that the narrators Gran has appallingly judged Mary on the acts that she has to do to live. The narrator also goes on to describe the area where Mary comes from as a "bomb-site" which shows that the grandmothers views have sadly 'rubbed off' on her own opinions. This creates a tough decision having to be faced as the narrator originally doesn't want to annoy the grandmother by being associated with someone like

The mother being a local beauty was raised in a fishermen family. She believed everything should be spotless and in order, the way her brothers ran their ships. She was a typical fishermen house wife; she grew beautiful gardens and raised broods of ducks and hens and would go digging in the mud for clams. At one point she might have loved her husband but it was quite evident that she despised him and his books. There were moments when they clashed fiercely with each other and she was disgusted with his inability to retain his children in the fishermen lifestyle. The mother was very ignorant and closed-minded towards other traditions. This is proven when the daughters marry men from different lifestyles and the mother wants nothing to do with them. She believes that they are lazy, dishonest, and the unknown in which she

a story that reflects the subordination of woman in marriage. By the time of the early

If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.”

A mother’s words are the ones that ring loudest in a child’s ear, are passed down from generation to generation, and the one’s that hold a special place in a child’s memory and heart forever. Expectations and guidelines are set at a young age. Morals and values are learned throughout the years, and life lessons are taught through the wisdom passed down from a mother to a daughter. Every mother has a wish for their daughter to be the best they can be. But at what point does instruction and wisdom become simply words that have been said one too many times? The short story “Girl,” written by Jamaica Kincaid is presented to the reader as a list of instructions from a mother to a daughter on how to live life to the

She asks for pity, yet the townspeople are strict with keeping with their traditions and her pleas of kindness neglect to draw in anybody's consideration and she is stoned to death.

The story is basically 2 pages of commands being told to one from another. At first, you could say the narrator was talking to a servant, telling them everything that they need to do. You might think this, until reading further that is. Shortly into the story it is very clear that these list of “commands” are being passed down from a mother to her daughter. Everything from “wash white clothes on Monday” (1) to “you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys” (10). It is very clear that the daughter is most likely a young curious teenager. She gets a lot of directions about housekeeping, but after a while you realize the point is not just about cleanliness, but about how to keep your reputation intact. As much as we would like to believe that people are not judging us by everything that we do, we realize that this story is more than a list of command on how to keep a clean house, but in fact how to keep a good social standing. By reading this story, you can tell that the mother is trying to make her daughter understand that she will be very successful in life if she maintains a sort of social class.

He raises many questions to guests to make sure they understand the situation and that they approve of his decision; "Suppose That he was young, and she much older than he, that she was light, and she was black" (Chesnutt 35), "Suppose, too, that he made ​​his way to the North ..." (Chesnutt 35). He does not seek to prolong the suspense, but to test and measure the reaction of the members. This attitude shows that despite his loyalty to his wife, he is none the less attached to his current status. He unveils the truth when he feels that the members approve the eventual choice; "And now, ladies and gentlemen, friends and companions, I ask you, what he should have done?" (Chesnutt 36).

Although it is the wife who is always looking for a husband in her personal life, in the Wife’s tale, it is the man who is forced to find what it is that all women desire. In the end he is obligated to marry, while the Wife is always excited to marry her next husband. The Wife wants the woman in the marriage to make the decisions and to have power, which is also seen in the old woman in her tale. In her tale, the old woman basically tricks the man into marrying her, and then into kissing her. This gives her control and she can then reveal her true self.

In " Nineteen-Thirty Seven" a girl name Josephine visits her mother in prison. Every time she visits her mother she brings a statue they call the Madonna. The statue is actually the Virgin, that cries with the help of wax and oil. Every time she visits her mother she never speaks. Her mother is in prison because they believe she is a witch with flaming wings. To prevent the prisoners from "flying" they throw cold water on them at night to take away some body heat. They shave their heads every week. They say they took Josephine's mother to jail the people threw stones at her calling her "Lougarou, witch criminal!" In the end the mother dies from being beaten down in the middle of the yard. I think these people fear these women because they

Sometimes her mom would make her help with cutting onions or peeling peaches and as soon as she was done she would run out the door when her mom’s back was turned. She viewed the chores inside the house was endless and depressing and would much rather work outside. She hears her mother stating that she can’t wait till the son, Laird gets bigger so he can do the chores outside and the girl can do the chorus inside with her. The mother states, “I just get my back turned and she runs off. It’s not like I had a girl in the family at all.” At this point the girl feels like she can’t trust her mother, she knows her mother loved her yet she feels like her mom is always plotting against her to keep her from working with her father. She didn’t expect her father to really listen to what her mother was saying, Laird, in her mind wouldn’t be able to do the job as well as she does. Looking at her father’s bloody apron she reminds that reader that the foxes were feed horse meat, other farmers whose horses will get old or injured would call her father and him and henry would go kill it and butchered it. However, if they already had a lot of meat they would keep them for a while. The winter she turned eleven they had two horses, Flora and Mack. It was this winter where she heard her mother go on more about her helping in the house. She states that she no longer feels safe because the people around her who thought the same way. She stated, “The word girl had formerly seemed to

Even when she knew when they were going to put down her, she had no interest of seeing it happen again, however this time the horse had gotten away from her dad and was running for dear life towards the open gate. Her dad yells at her to run and close the gate, but instead of closing it she opens it widely and lets Flora escape, meanwhile, her brother saw everything. Her father quickly gets in the truck to track down the horse while her brother goes with them. Later on that night they come home with the meat in the truck and while eating her brother tells on her. Feeling embarrassed and ashamed she hides her face and silently agrees with her dad that she is just a girl. At the very end of this story is where the main character goes through coming of age, she realized in everyone’s eyes she would always be a girl. Someone who should be inside the house doing chores and canning food. This is a story that I can relate to, growing up I was a tomboy who was always outside helping my dad from yard work to welding. My grandma was always trying to get me to do chores inside, do my hair, make up and wear a dress. Often, she would tell me that I need to stop acting like a boy and start acting like a girl so I can grow old and get married to a nice young man. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenty’s that I started to dress more like a girl and wear

“The Revolt of ‘Mother’” by Mary Wilkins Freeman, was a story of a woman who lived in New England around or before the author’s time. The mother, Sarah Penn, was kept out of the families decisions by the father, Adoniram Penn, until one event that lead to her taking drastic actions while her husband was gone. There are many religious symbols and actions taken by “Mother” within the story. Through the story Sarah moved from a feeling of servitude to her husband, to a feeling that she was in servitude to the Lords will and this led her, in the end, to hold power over her husband.

In the short story “Out of Bounds” by Beverley Naidoo the protagonist, Rohan opens the gate to his house for a squatter named Solani to fill his buckets with water. If Rohan’s mother would have been home, she would have not opened the gate to let Solani fill his buckets with water because she wanted to protect her family, she loses her trust in the squatters, and because she did not want the neighbors to think badly of her.