The book uses fictional documents, such as book excerpts, news reports, and hearing transcripts, to frame the story of Carietta "Carrie" White, a 17-year-old girl from Chamberlain, Maine. Carrie's mother, Margaret, a fanatical Christian fundamentalist, has a vindictive and unstable personality, and over the years has ruled Carrie with an iron rod and repeated threats of damnation, as well as occasional physical abuse. Carrie does not fare much better at her school where her frumpy looks, lack of friends and lack of popularity with boys make her the butt of ridicule, embarrassment, and public humiliation by her fellow teenage peers. At the beginning of the novel, Carrie has her first period while showering after a physical education class. Carrie, terrified, has no understanding of menstruation as her mother never told her about it. Her classmates use the event as an opportunity to humiliate her. Led by Chris Hargensen, they throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her. When gym teacher Miss Desjardin happens upon the scene, she at first berates Carrie for her stupidity but is horrified when she realizes that Carrie has no idea what has happened to her. She helps her clean up and tries to explain. Carrie's mother shows no sympathy for her first encounter with what she calls "the woman's curse." Miss Desjardin, still incensed over the locker room incident and ashamed at her initial disgust with Carrie, wants all the girls who made fun of Carrie suspended and banned from attending the school prom, but the principal instead punishes the girls by giving them several detentions. When Chris, after an altercation with Miss Desjardin, refuses to appear for the detention, she is suspended and barred from the prom and tries to get her fat... ... middle of paper ... ...nd that the only way to save her is to kill her. Revealing that Carrie's conception was a result of what may have been marital rape (although she admits she enjoyed the sex), she stabs Carrie in the shoulder with a kitchen knife, but Carrie kills her mother by stopping her heart. Mortally wounded but still alive, Carrie makes her way to a roadhouse where she sees Chris and Billy leaving. After Billy attempts to run her over, she telekinetically takes control of the vehicle and wrecks the car, killing them both. Sue Snell, who has been following Carrie's telepathic "broadcast," finds Carrie collapsed in the parking lot. The two have a brief telepathic conversation. Though Carrie had believed that Sue and Tommy had set her up for the prank, Carrie realizes that Sue is innocent and has never really felt a real urge to humiliate her. Carrie then forgives Sue, and dies.
In the exposition of the story, Minus immediately delves into the characters, introducing us to both and young Carrie Johnson and Mrs. Cado P. Clark, the main characters in the story. She also gives us a physical description of Carrie, as well as a beginning presentation of Mrs. Clark’s character. Of Carrie, Minus writes, “…Carrie had come out of the South, the red clay clinging to her misshapen heels, made migrant by the disintegration of a crumbling age” also “Carrie’s wide brown nostrils...”(Girl, Colored 1940). Of Mrs. Clark’s character as person from the upper class; she writes “A pale blonde woman opened the door. Wisps of inoffensive hair strayed from the leather thongs of a dozen curlers set at variance on her head.”Minus instantly offers a feel for how each character will shape up to be, and presents a chance for us (the reader) to attach ourselves to these perhaps not-so-unique individuals. Without further ado, Minus expounds on her both her characters initial descriptions of throughout the remainder of the story. We learn that Carrie has a quick temper and she easily angered but manages to keep of her emotions under control, Mrs. Clark ha...
Racial inequality was a big thing back in the day, as the blacks were oppressed, discriminated and killed. The blacks did not get fair treatment as the whites, they were always been looked down, mocked, and terrified. But Moody knew there’s still an opportunity to change the institution through Civil Rights Movement. As she matured Anne Moody come to a conclusion that race was created as something to separate people, and there were a lot of common between a white person and a black person. Moody knew sexual orientation was very important back in the 1950s, there was little what women can do or allowed to do in the society. For example, when Moody was ridiculed by her activist fellas in Civil Rights Movement. Women indeed played an important role in Moody’s life, because they helped forming her personality development and growth. The first most important woman in Moody’s life would be her mother, Toosweet Davis. Toosweet represent the older rural African American women generation, whom was too terrified to stand up for their rights. She was portrayed as a good mother to Moody. She struggled to make ends meet, yet she did everything she could to provide shelter and food to her children. Toosweet has encouraged Moody to pursue education. However, she did not want Moody to go to college because of the fear of her daughter joining the Civil Rights Movement and getting killed. The second important woman to Moody would be Mrs. Burke, She is the white woman Moody worked for. Mrs. Burke is a fine example of racist white people, arguably the most racist, destructive, and disgusting individual. In the story, Mrs. Burke hold grudge and hatred against all African American. Although she got some respects for Moody, State by the Narrator: “You see, Essie, I wouldn’t mind Wayne going to school with you. But all Negroes aren’t like you and your
The main character in the book Divergent is a girl named Beatrice. Beatrice is developed throughout the book by having to do things that push her out of her comfort zone. Beatrice was born in the faction of Abnegation, where everything is simple and alike. Abnegation values selflessness, but Beatrice doesn’t feel like she is selfless. She decides to change to the faction of Dauntless, who values courage. Beatrice has to do things like jump off trains, and fight people to show she is courageous. She decides to start going byTris, because Beatrice won’t fit in with the dauntless. When Beatrice makes the decision to be a dauntless she says “My fathers eyes burn into mine with a look of accusation’. This is because it was selfish of her to choose to be a Dauntless. Beatrice doesn’t like to be told what to do, and will stand up for what she thinks is right. Beatrice tries to be kind to others, but sometimes she just can’t control herself.
she will not put up with how she is treated. She has the courage to
The book , The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is about a women named Aibileen who is a black maid. She is taking care of her 17th white baby now. She works for a woman named Miss Leefolt. Aibileen has never disobeyed an order in her life and never intends to do so. Her friend Minny is the exact opposite. When she is around her boss, she has to hold herself back from sassing them all the time. Skeeter Phelan is different than the rest of the white ladies. She thinks that blacks aren’t all that bad. She decides to write a book about the lives of maids for white ladies. Otherwise known as the Help. She with the help of Aibileen and Minny hope to create a book that starts a revolution about what white people think about blacks.
Finally Mary Rowlandson was forced to leave the burning house. Immediately she saw her brother-in-law fall, dead from wounds; her nephew, whose leg was broken, killed, and her sister shot. All around her was carnage. She was shot through her side and the child she carried in her arms was struck by the same bullet. There were 13 killed and 24 taken captive. According to Mary Rowlandson's account,
In The Handmaid’s Tale, much use is made of imagery; to enable the reader to create a more detailed mental picture of the novel’s action and also to intensify the emotive language used. In particular, Atwood uses many images involving flowers and plants.
A man begins to cry. Not because of sorrow or joy, but because he’s terrified. The man who once enjoyed viewing the firework show that symbolized the freedom of his nation now cowers, because of the hardships he endured to maintain the freedom of his nation. Like many war veterans, the man suffers from PTSD. Billy Pilgrim, a WWII veteran, also suffers from PTSD. While Kurt Vonnegut wrote his novel Slaughterhouse-five before PTSD became an official diagnosis, the protagonist of his story, Billy Pilgrim, displays the disease’s symptoms. Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim’s non-linear voyage through time as symbol to reflect his theme of the destructiveness during and after war.
A woman’s power and privileges depend on which societal class she is in. In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale each group of women are each represented in a different way. The three classes of women from the novel are the Handmaids, the Marthas and the Wives. The ways in which the women are portrayed reflect their societal power and their privileges that they bestow.
I think it is very difficult to define the exact character of Dreiser’s "Sister Carrie", and his original intention. I would say, "as many eyes, so many opinions", so no wonder there are different approaches and interpretations towards the novel which is influenced not just by the reader’s reading or personal experience, but also by their particular philosophy of life as well as knowledge about the historical background. "Sister Carrie" can be read as a novel of desire, seduction, or the critique of capitalism and consumerism. It’s definitely not the plot or characters which are dominant elements of it. The taste and the literary value of Dreiser’s novel is shaped and created by its setting and the author’s tone. Chicago and New York have almost as organic and important role in the novel as the characters. They do not just form the simple environment for the novel, but they influence its character and a very strong impression. Chicago’s character is kind of more "positive", it is a city of promise, luck, rise (Carrie). We can say that in Chicago, Hurtswood means something. New York ‘s character is different. It’s a city of lies, fall, impersonal isolation of "walled city where surviving is much more difficult than in Chicago. In New York, Hurstwood means nothing. The setting creates different expectations to people. During the reading of "Sister Carrie", I was interested in searching and revealing the different kinds of desire. Generally we can say that Dreiser deals with the desire of wealth, social status, material things which are represented by money. Within this generalization, we can find and identify many other faces and forms of lust and longing. Carrie, as an ambitious and strong woman embodies the social values of the consumer culture. All she longs for is a material wealth, which represents power. She can be seen as a symbol of money. But Carrie lives in a world of prices. Her labor costs $4.50; board $4 a week; car fare $.60; cheap lunch $.10; etc. She imitates everything perfectly and that’s why she is becoming what people want her to become. Her desires come from other people’s desires. It is exactly Drouet, who introduces her to the world of wealth, to materialism. He gives her money, flat even "name when she enters the world of theater. She plays her role according to Drouet’s desires – once acts as his mistress or "wife".
Miss Hancock, her personality and beliefs were contrasted entirely by her character foil, Charlotte’s mother, “this civilized, this clean, this disciplined woman.” All through Charlotte’s life, her mother dictated her every move. A “small child [was] a terrible test to that cool and orderly spirit.” Her mother was “lovely to look at, with her dark-blond hair, her flawless figure, her smooth hands. She never acted frazzled or rushed or angry, and her forehead was unmarked by age lines or worry. Even her appearance differed greatly to Miss Hancock, who she described as,” overdone, too much enthusiasm. Flamboyant. Orange hair.” The discrepancy between the characters couldn’t escape Charlotte’s writing, her metaphors. Her seemingly perfect mother was “a flawless, modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete. Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium. In every room there are machines – computers, typewriters, intricate copiers. They are buzzing and clicking way, absorbing and spitting out information with the speed of sound. Downstairs, at ground level, people walk in and out, tracking mud and dirt over the steel-grey tiles, marring the cool perfection of the building. There are no comfortable chairs in the lobby.” By description, her mother is fully based on ideals and manners, aloof, running her life with “sure and perfect control.” Miss
An example is her torture during the majority of the book. In 6th grade she went to her friends party, and to her astonishment, a couple began making out in the closet. She called her mom to tell her what was going on and her mom told the mother ...
Billy is not happy to stay behind and tells the elderly couple not to mess with him because he knows they don’t really want to keep him and he knows that he has just been dumped off. The couple
Carrie chooses to leave her sister – the only real family she has in the city – and goes off with a Drouet, a man she just recently
When she tries to find a job, she is scared. Carrie has no skills to offer an employer, no job experience, and her clothing was of poor quality. Chicago was a large city, but society at that time did not have many job opportunities for working women. The only jobs that Carrie could possibly get were in the factories that, paid low wages, had poor working conditions, and long hours. She knew that after she paid rent to her brother-in-law, she would have very little left to buy all the beautiful things that she longed for. When Carrie took the job at the shoe factory, she did not like the hard work and considered the other women who worked there to be common. When winter arrived, Carrie got sick and stayed home from work which caused her to lose her job.