There is an infinite number of personalities and the best art works portray them vividly and truthfully. Some people are practical, while others are more abstract. In the comedic novels about family life, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932) and Chicken Every Sunday: My Life with Mother's Boarders by Rosemary Taylor (1943), the practical characters are in the forefront. While representing different life phases due to their age difference, Gibbons's main character Flora Poste is quite similar in her life views and actions to Taylor's Mother. The central theme is the conflict between notions of practicality and romance, reflected by the actions of the heroines, which happen to be heavily affected by their unconventional upbringings.
The main characters of both novels, Flora Poste and Mother, are driven by modern common sense customary of their time. Flora, orderly and well-educated, lives her life through what she learns in self-help books. She is confident that she knows best. Therefore, after meeting Starkadders the only thing that comes to her mind is to attempt to make them “normal” by her standards. She is obsessed with order in other people's lives, as well as in her own. When she finds out about more Starkadder women in Sussex, she tells herself that she would rescue Elfine, but beyond that would make no promises. Flora's practical nature helps her to bring change in other characters despite the conflict between her values and the values of the Cold Comfort Farm's natives. Taylor's Mother seeks to extend her family and minds the business of others. Both heroines manifest their practicality by manipulating people's lives, who happen to be around them and not fit certain norms. Mother and Flora take on the ambitious tas...
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...bbons's dominatrix, Ada Doom, in the fact that both of them represent power, which belongs to women within the traditional extended family (Faye 846). However, Mother stays practical and ordinary until the end, with an exception of the period after Father's death, while Ada, like Flora, or the rest of the Cold Comfort Farm's natives, dramatically changes within one chapter under Flora's manipulation.
Works Cited
Gibbons, Stella. Cold Comfort Farm. London: The Penguin Group, 2006. Print.
Taylor, Rosemary. Chicken Every Sunday: My Life with Mother's Boarders. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1943. Print.
Gerrard, Christine.“Sense and Sensibility in Cold Comfort Farm.” English Review November 2004: 2. Print.
Hammil, Faye.“Cold Comfort Farm, D.H. Lawrence, and English Literary Culture Between the Wars.” Modern Fiction Studies Winter 2001: 831-854. Print.
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
The author, Melina Marchetta applies a variety of familiar and stereotypical events in the book. From cases such as the different characters, their characteristics and their reaction upon certain events that occur in the book. One great example of a stereotypical event in this book is the relationship between Josephine Alibrandi and Jacob Coote who is the school captain of a public school called Cook High. “He cracked two eggs on my glasses once” (32).
The stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, are different in many ways, but are also similar. “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Everyday Use” both focus on the relationships of the mother and daughter, and on the sibling’s relationships with each other. Emily from “I Stand Here Ironing” and Maggie from “Everyday Use” have different relationships with their mothers, but have similar relationships with their sisters. Although the stories are similar in that Emily and Maggie are both distant from their sisters, they differ in that the mother is distant from Emily in “I Stand Here Ironing,” while the mother is close to Maggie in “Everyday Use.”
Even with the pain of bearing children, raising them, doing household and even farm chores, their efforts have never been truly appreciated. Mrs. Wright was “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid—and fluttery…” as Mrs. Hale, her neighbor, describes her (22). This would all soon change after her wedding day. With Mr. Wright’s insipid character and lack of patience of any joyous sound, Mrs. Wright’s spirit dwindled to nothing. It seems she spent hours at a time focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for the only life there was in the house, her canary. Even when Mr. Hale offered to get a party telephone, Mr. Wright responded, “…folks talk too much anyway…”(5). This silence he preferred also applied to his spouse. There were no hugs given out much less a smile. He failed to give her even the most minimal sing of appreciation much less the emotional warmth she hungered for.
...hetypes of these primary characters, both of these novels make a parallel statement on feminism. The expectations of both themselves and society greatly determine the way that these women function in their families and in other relationships. Looking at the time periods in which these novels were written and take place, it is clear that these gender roles greatly influence whether a female character displays independence or dependence. From a contemporary viewpoint, readers can see how these women either fit or push the boundaries of these expected gender roles.
The novel shadows the life of Janie Crawford pursuing the steps of becoming the women that her grandmother encouraged her to become. By the means of doing so, she undergoes a journey of discovering her authentic self and real love. Despise the roller-coaster obstacles, Janie Crawford’s strong-will refuses to get comfortable with remorse, hostility, fright, and insanity.
In both Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" present the reader with strong, successful female characters. Alexandra Bergson, the heroine of O Pioneers!, becomes the manager and proprietor of a prosperous farm on the Nebraska frontier while Joan R. Bascom of "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" is a successful doctor. Cather and Gilman create competent, independent female characters that do not conform to the perceived societal standards for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Both women must struggle against society’s perception of what they should be and how they should behave, however, Alexandra’s struggle leaves her emotionally distant while Joan’s struggle does not hinder her emotional attachments.
The lack of support and affection protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, causes them to construct their lives on their own without a motherly figure. Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, displays the development of Sula and Nel through childhood into adulthood. Before Sula and Nel enter the story, Morrison describes the history of the Peace and Wright family. The Peace family live abnormally to their town of Medallion, Ohio. Whereas the Wrights have a conventional life style, living up to society’s expectations.The importance of a healthy mother-daughter relationship is shown through the interactions of Eva and Hannah Peace, Hannah and Sula, and between Helene Wright and Nel. When Sula and Nel become friends they realize the improper parenting they
... the novel. Ranging from clothes, to birds, to the “pigeon house”, each symbol and setting provides the reader with insight into Edna’s personality, thoughts, and awakening.
Influenced by the style of “plainspoken English” utilized by Phillip Larkin (“Deborah Garrison”), Deborah Garrison writes what she knows, with seemingly simple language, and incorporating aspects of her life into her poetry. As a working mother, the narrator of Garrison’s, “Sestina for the Working Mother” provides insight for the readers regarding inner thoughts and emotions she experiences in her everyday life. Performing the daily circus act of balancing work and motherhood, she, daydreams of how life might be and struggles with guilt, before ultimately realizing her chosen path is what it right for her and her family.
Liscio, Lorraine. “Beloved’s Narrative: Writing Mother’s Milk.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol.11, No.1 (Spring, 1992): 31-46. JSTOR. Web. 27. Oct. 2015.
portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time
Both stories show the characters inequality with their lives as women bound to a society that discriminates women. The two stories were composed in different time frames of the women’s rights movement; it reveals to the readers, that society was not quite there in the fair treatment towards the mothers, daughters, and wives of United States in either era. Inequality is the antagonist that both authors created for the characters. Those experiences might have helped that change in mankind to carve a path for true equality among men and women.
...ew them differently. The theme of the story thus in fact adheres to this epiphany that both the mother and the daughter encounter in their lives and that they understand that fighting against this injustice is quite a difficult and time-consuming task. One must have the luxury of being able to afford risks in order to wage a war on the system. References Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. New York: Random House, 2002. Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. New York: Penguin Books, 2000. Joyce, James. “The Dead.” The Dubliners. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. Lawrence, D.H. St. Mawr and Other Stories. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. Mansfield, Katherine. “The Prelude.” Available online at: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~wwc2r/enlt226/prelude.html
In her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen brought to life the struggles and instability of the English hierarchy in the early 19th century. Through the heartaches and happiness shared by Elinor Dashwood, who represented sense and her sister Marianne, who stood for sensibility, Austen tells a story of sisters who plummet from the upper class to the lower crust of society and the characters that surround them. Austen juxtaposes the upper and lower classes in English society to give the reader a full understanding of the motivation to be a part of the upper class and the sacrifices one will give up to achieve such status. Austen exposes the corruptness of society, the significance of class and the fundamental building blocks both are to the decision-making surrounding her protagonists, Marianne and Elinor.