Many conflicting situations that give way to problems often arise in life. These problems often create conflicting feelings within an individual who tries to but cannot satisfy both of the opposing sides. The novella, Washington Square by Henry James, portrays this idea. The story follows Dr. Sloper who marries a clever woman who bears him a son. However, death seizes both the mother and child, leaving only his daughter, Catherine, who spends most of her life trying to please her father, but could never please him because she was not clever like her mother. Later, at her cousin’s bridal party, she meets Morris, a handsome, jobless young man with whom she falls in love and to whom she wishes to marry. However, Dr. Sloper, believing that Morris cares only about their money, refuses to let Catherine marry him. Through the novella, Washington Square, James portrays how Catherine’s problem regarding her love for Morris causes her to have conflicting desires and obligations that tear her mind in contradicting directions and reveals the novella’s theme of deceit.
Catherine desires to please Morris as well as her father, which proves impossible because Catherine’s marriage would please Morris but would not please her father. After meeting Catherine at the bridal party, Morris begins courting her. Later, he declares his love for her and kisses her, exchanging “lovers’ vows” (pg. 150), which suggests that marrying Catherine would please Morris, but would not please her father though Catherine’s “deepest desire was to please him” (pg. 113). When Catherine tells Dr. Sloper that she will marry Morris, he responds, “I don’t like your engagement” (pg. 154). The next day Dr. Sloper meets Morris and tells him, “…it is about the truth as a son-in...
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... desires to please both her father and Morris. However, to please her father, she would not marry Morris, which would not please Morris at all. Thus, she cannot satisfy them both. She has an obligation to herself to seek happiness with Morris as well as an obligation towards her father. However, if she obeys her father she would not be fulfilling her obligation towards herself. The conflicting desires and obligations influence the conflict regarding Catherine’s marriage, which reveals the novella’s theme of deceit. Morris deceives Catherine when he tells her that he loves her. Dr. Sloper deceives himself when he states that he does not allow Catherine’s marriage because of his belief that Morris only wants her money. Two compelling desires and obligations pull Catherine’s mind in conflicting directions in the story; the same happens to everyone in real life as well.
The novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, provides the reader with a character that possesses qualities both challenging to understand and difficult to endorse. These characteristics show themselves through the character’s desire and passion to pursue his dream. Jay Gatsby, an elusive, persuasive, and sometimes deceptive man displays such contrast in his moral foundation that leaves the reader questioning his true motives at nearly every action. There is an argument to be made that Gatsby is both great and not so great, making him the epitome of moral ambiguity. For example, Nick, another major character, who happens to be the narrator of the story, first describes Gatsby in the opening chapter of the novel as someone who he both
Talking about her past, present and her future. At this point the audience knows that Robert is not living. He is just a manifestation Catherine is experiencing. Catherine doesn’t know that her father is not alive. But she deals with it nevertheless. She has a conversation with him as if he were real. She keeps the father-daughter talk real. Although Robert was mentally ill as a result of his mathematic skills, Catherine is wo...
Obligations arise as Jane is forced to stay with Mrs. Reed. With out being nurtured, Jane receives unnecessary abuse and still feels as if she is yet to find “home”. Frustration slowly builds up in Jane’s mind and she awaits the perfect chance to let it all out, “You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity” (33) With the anger and anguish built up inside of Jane, she finally finds a chance to move out, leaving behind a broken relationship with her aunt Mrs. Reed. Jane works towards living a better life, a more worthwhile life leaving what happened in the past, where it belongs. As Mrs. Reed becomes ill, she wishes to see Jane one last time before she passes away. This triggers the moral side of the Character Jane Eyre, and she is stumped on a decision she was to make, not realizing that her decisions will show her true character.
In January 1890, after two and a half years of depression and mental illness, Charlotte Perkins Stetson began to keep her journal again. Basking in the "steady windless weather" of Pasadena and the support of her friend Grace Channing, Charlotte slowly regained her strength, ambition, and ability to write. Concentrating on a new life on a new coast, her first brief entries express each day's essential details. On January 20, she says only "Began writing with Grace…". Charlotte does not record that on that clear, sun-shot Californian day, her thoughts turned once more to frigid New England and a friend from a former life.
Dorothea Brooke is a very bright and beautiful young lady that does not much care for frills or getting ahead in society. She wants more than anything to help those around her, starting with the tenants of her uncle. She desires to redesign their cottages, but Arthur Brooke, her elderly uncle with whom she and her younger sister Celia Brooke lives with, does not want to spend the money required. So Dorothea shares her dream with Sir James Chettam, who finds her fascinating, and encourages her to use the plans she has drawn up for the tenants on his land instead. He falls in love with her, but does not share his feelings for her quickly enough. Edward Casaubon, an older scholarly clergyman asks Dorothea to marry him, she does not accept until she finds out Sir James means to seriously court her, then turns around and tells Casaubon yes. What she does not te...
The relationship between Myrtle and her husband is insincere, loveless, and dead. Myrtles husband George, who is lifeless, poor, and often dirty, owns a garage in the valley of ashes. While George is completely devoted to his wife Myrtle, on the other hand myrtle has lost love for her husband, and desires for a more elegant fast pace life. Myrtle tries to find a way to fix the situation between her and her husband, but instead she takes the easy way out and cheats on her husband with Tom a very rich, prominent, and handsome man who gives her everything that she desires, but he is also a married man.
Another important part of the plot is Catherine and Fredricks love for each other. At the beginning they are starstruck lovers, but Henry starts to regret it. “You don’t have to pretend like you love
Lying has deadly effects on both the individual who lies and those around them. This concept is demonstrated in The Great Gatsby. Although Gatsby, Tom and Myrtle have different motives for being deceitful, they all lie in order to fulfill their desires and personal needs. Myrtle’s desire to be wealthy is illustrated when she first meets Tom, dressed in his expensive clothing, as her attitude changes when she puts on the luxurious dress and when she encourages Tom to buy her a dog. Tom’s deception is clear when he hides his affair with Myrtle by placing Myrtle in a different train, withholding the truth from Mr. Wilson of the affair and convincing Myrtle and Catherine that he will one day marry Myrtle. Gatsby tries to convince himself and others that he is the son of wealthy people, he creates an appearance that he is a successful, educated man through the books in his library and assures himself that Daisy loves him. Tom’s dishonesty reveals that he is selfish, while Gatsby’s distortions expose his insecurities, and Myrtle’s misrepresentations show that her sole focus in life is to achieve materialistic success. Gatsby and Myrtle both lie in order to obtain the “American dream.” However, Tom, who appears to already have achieved the “American dream”, deceives others out of boredom and because he takes his wealthy lifestyle for granted. F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates the human flaw of dishonesty for personal gain and how lies have inevitably tragic consequences in his characterization of Gatsby, Myrtle and Tom.
As Mark Twain once declared, “What would men be without women…” This quote is clearly illustrated in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless masterpiece The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is the tragic love story of a poor man who falls in love with a rich girl and spends the rest of his life getting rich to impress her; however, in the end he dies alone without his love fulfilled. Although Fitzgerald’s novel is mainly androcentric, he uses several females each unique in their personalities to highlight the male characters, and to show that although people may have different desires, motivations, and needs they are not that different from each other.
Furthermore, the love that Heathcliff’s young niece and nephew share is one that echoes that of what his and Catherine’s love could have been, which provides even more ground for the fiend to tyrannize the two. The semblence in their relationships can be seen in comparable scenes, the first of which recounts Catherine uttering, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” (74) Later, Heathcliff pronounces apropos of Cathy caring for Hareton, “Your love will make him an outcast, and a beggar.” (299) The similarities between their two relationships is therefore outlined in their alluded elements of shame and social degradation that can be found in both occasions , and this likeness further agitates the aching heart of Wuthering Height’s antagonist.
Deception is the driving force of the play, the key theme that causes the character’s action that shapes the story. In Act I, Nora deceives her husband, Helmer, in several different ways. The reader gets their first glimpse of deceit when Nora snacks on some macaroons and then hides them from her husband.
The writers of Much Ado about Nothing, Wuthering Heights, and A Streetcar Named Desire all incorporate conflict in relationships as reoccurring theme in their texts. There are a number of different forms of relationships in the texts such as marital, romantic and family relationships and they are all presented with complexity by the authors as their opinions on the subject matter will be influenced differently due to the era they live in and their personal experiences. For example, in Much Ado about Nothing marriage is a means of creating a happy ending which is typical in Shakespearean plays but it is also a means of social advancement similarly to Wuthering Heights where couples married to either maintain or advance social class or property and not necessarily because they loved each other, Catherine openly says she wants to marry Edgar because “he will be rich”. In contrary marriage in A Streetcar Named Desire is a means of survival for Stella and Blanch having “lost Belle Reve”.
McNair’s childhood when she sleepwalks to the pond as a kid. This is where Mrs.McNair always went to get away from things. This plays a big part when the little boy shows up in a dream like state. She is escaping to him, to the baby boy she connected with in the hospital. She is confused because the baby boy she connected with at the hospital wasn’t hers, yet she still dreams about him, about how he is doing. Mrs.McNair lost her own child and through a mistake in the hospital connected with someone else’s, who then had to be taken away from her. While she is dealing with that hardship her husband is never home during the week and is cheating on her. Yet society says she still needs to keep her prim and proper ways other wise she may cause uproar in society. On the other hand Mr.McNair was applauded for his actions, for sticking around with Mrs. McNair while having a mistress. He stayed the good guy throughout the story. While Mrs. McNair and other females during this time, were limited in almost everything that they did. Her actions reflected on her husband. The women of society had a duty to maintain this standard of perfection no matter what they were going through in their
The character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh is an integral element of the plot, contributing to, as well as influencing, the final outcome of Darcy's marriage and the various factors associated with it. Lady Catherine, a prominent and influential noblewomen in the English aristocracy, thrusts her domineering predilections onto her family, friends, and acquaintances, starting with the pompous clergyman she patronizes, Mr. Collins. Lady Catherine exerts her influence upon Mr. Collins by frankly telling him that he "must marry ...a gentle woman for [her] sake" (92). This effectively causes Collins to peruse Elizabeth, the daughter of the man whose estate he will inherit. After being rejected by Elizabeth, Collins marries Elizabeth's childhood friend Charlotte. On a trip to visit the newly married couple, Elizabeth finds herself and Lady Catherine's nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy, at a dinner party hosted by Lady Catherine herself. At the dinner party, Lad...
Catherine’s revenge does not make things better for her. Her revenge on Heathcliff by blaming him for her upcoming death does not meliorate her mind. Just before she dies, she ascribes Heathcliff for her “murder.” “You have killed me, and thriven on it, I think” (Bronte 158). Catherine resembles what Oliver Goldsmith said, “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy?