Bobbie Ann Mason Essay

Norma decides to break up with Leroy just like Nora did with Torvald. Norma says that it is her mothers and his fault; she said “she won’t leave me alone-you won’t leave me alone” and also that “I feel eighteen again.” (Mason). This is similar to Nora when she broke up with Torvald she felt that she was her father’s doll and then she became Torvalds doll when they married. Both felt as if they were not themselves when they were with their spouse. In the short story “The

drove the main character insane which led to him exact revenge on his friend or “friend” . Emotional burdens can be considered secondary dangers, as Bobbie Ann Mason discusses in her essay “On Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried.’” In “The Things They Carried,” “[the] immediate drama is the effort ... to contain the emotion, to carry it,” (Mason). Emotional baggage can result in a character obsessing over emotions, which

beginning of the twenty-first century. A problem with no name, that makes women feel desolate and purposeless, forcing them to ask themselves “is this all?” Norma Jean toils with this very same question in Shiloh, a realistic fiction short story by Bobbie Ann Mason. The marriage of Norma Jean and her devoted, yet inactive husband Leroy falls to shambles when he is injured from work and has to stay home. They wander aimlessly around each other, much like ghosts, withholding their need to confide in one another

A Feminist Perspective: What’s That Smell in the Kitchen Women burning bras in the 1960’s became a sign of the Women’s Liberation movement. However, this was not the beginning of the women’s movement. This began many years earlier in the late 1800’s. In Marge Piercy’s poem, “What’s That Smell in the Kitchen,” she gives a description of what the women in the 1980’s are doing to be a part of the women’s movement. According to Bell Hooks, "Feminism is a struggle against sexist oppression.

Family, they are single-handedly the most important aspect of your development into an independent adult. I’ve grown up in a white suburban neighborhood, and my hometown is in Champlin, Minnesota. My life is heavily influenced by my family and family traditions such as celebrating Christmas and having Easter egg hunts. Childhood is the most crucial part of everyone’s life. It’s also the most critical time for learning and because of this, while you’re growing up, you tend to absorb a tremendous amount

Shiloh Have you ever felt that men always screw things up? Perhaps it is not men themselves that cause destruction; maybe it is merely the result of the presence of a masculine character. The role of masculinity is an essential aspect in both Bobbie Ann Mason's short story entitled, Shiloh, and in Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, although it functions very differently in each story. In Shiloh, we see the detrimental effects that the male role has even in its absence through the

as Sam wishes to create meaning within the knowledge of her father. As expected Sam isn’t able to get very many answers from a picture. “The soldier boy in the picture never changed. In a way that made him dependable. But he seemed so innocent” (Mason p66). Just looking at his picture she wishes that she could tell him everything that he has missed, making him seem more personal and therefore a definite figure in her life, rather than just a

lose their sons to something that is unavoidable such as a disease or simply just death at a young age. Jhumpa Lahari explores the thought that a father needs to provide for the family financially in order to give the family a good life, while Bobbie Ann Mason encourages the idea that simply presence and materialistic things will help one’s family and at the same time happiness. However, this is not always the case as both the families in this story struggle with the aftermath of the loss of their

there are a surfeit of stories that mirror one another in terms of similar themes, including but not limited to: love, happiness, journeys, etc. Two short stories in particular, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor and “Shiloh” by Bobbie Ann Mason, share similar aspects pertaining to the dual themes of conflict within the families as well as journeys embarked upon by the main characters of the short stories that lead to the ultimate demise of the families. “A Good Man is Hard to Find”

Both In Country , by Bobbie Ann Mason and “On the Rainy River,” by Tim O’Brien share the theme of guilt; in O’Brien’s case, guilt meant his decision to fight in the war, Emmett’s guilt meant having survived through it and killing innocent people. Emmett’s guilt is more along the lines of survivor’s guilt, O’Brien’s is more about the decision he made to fight. With Tim O’Brien, going to war meant earning the respect of his family and friends. He describes his decision to go to war as “cowardly” because