Good evening Sevasti,
I really enjoyed your post because it was about an era that I am very interested in. I have never read Dorothy Parker's "Big Blonde", but from what you have explained it sounds like a very intriguing read that can be influential for this class. Ever since I was a kid I have always loved everything about the roaring '20's and people tend to forget the life women actually had to live during this time. Hazel was not wrong for believing that marriage would be the key to life because that level of thinking was ingrained into them as children. This is a great example of a character who is "defined by obstacles in life" (Lyama) because she let's marriage, drinking and death define who she is and allows them to grow into these enormous
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Another character who is also another great example of being defined by obstacles is Ayla from The Earth's Children Series written by Jean M Auel. This series of novels is about a young Cro-Magnon woman who is in search of her own people after being banned from the clan of Neanderthals who took her in as a child. In the first book, Clan of the Cave Bear, Ayla had just became a woman when she was brutally raped many times by the Clan leader's son, Brun. Now, in this novel and during this time period it was thought that when a Clan man gave a Clan woman a certain signal that meant that he wanted to have sex. This woman could not refuse because it was customary to allow the man to relieve his needs and she just needed to assume the position. Brun hated Ayla from the very moment she showed up in front of the clan's path and didn't mind showing her how much and he did often. Since Ayla had just developed into a woman she became pregnant. The clan believed that the spirits of the clan members were what started life within a woman and believed it could be anyone’s spirit, not the man she has lied with, so they didn’t quite know that it was Brun’s, but Ayla did because she was Cro-Magnon and she had a
Anne Moody (born Essie Mae) was a very private person, and her withheld feelings often led to mental breakdowns. Throughout her childhood she is a timid, poor little girl who is afraid to even ask her mother questions about what is going on around her. Through most of her childhood experiences she learns the social significance of race and gender on her own because her mother avoids confronting the issue because she feels society cannot be changed. The first time Anne is really confronted with the issue of racial differences is when she makes friends with some white neighbors and goes to the movies with them. When arriving at the movies she learns that she cannot sit in the regular seats with the other white children. ?After the m...
In society, people are oppressed in many ways, such as blacks not being able to vote back in the 60’s, or women not having as many rights as men. There are many social constraints that hold people back from their dreams and desires. The two novels, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton and Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, both accurately portray the power of social constraints. In each novel the main character struggles with the tremendous impact of social constraints on their lives but their is a great difference between repression and oppression.
Dorothy Rothschild, later to become the famous writer Dorothy Parker, was born on August 22, 1893 to J. Henry Rothschild and Eliza A (Marston) Rothschild in West End, New Jersey. Parker’s father, Mr. Rothschild, was a Jewish business man while Mrs. Rothschild, in contrast, was of Scottish descent. Parker was the youngest of four; her only sister Helen was 12 and her two brothers, Harold and Bertram, were aged 9 and 6, respectively. Just before her fifth birthday, Dorothy’s mother became very ill and died on July 20, 1897. Three years later in 1900, Mr. Rothschild remarried to a 48 year-old spinster widow, Eleanor Frances Lewis, who Dorothy referred to as “the housekeeper.” The new Mrs. Rothschild entered Dorothy in the Blessed Sacrament Convent School, where the Catholic ways of thinking were instilled in her. Fortunately or unfortunately, in 1903 Dorothy’s stepmother dropped dead of an acute cerebral hemorrhage and consequently Dorothy did not have to continue at the Blessed Sacrament Convent. A few years later, in the fall of 1907, Dorothy entered Miss Dana’s school, a junior college, where she studied several different disciplines and was exposed to current events and cultural activities. This environment nourished Dorothy’s intellectual appetite, but this too was short-lived; Miss Dana died in March 1908. Dorothy, now aged 14, was only at the school for one year, the fall of 1907 to the spring of 1908 (Miss Dana’s school had to file for bankruptcy). In 1913, Mr. Rothschild died leaving Dorothy, age 19, to find her own way and support herself.
Anne Moody's story is one of success filled with setbacks and depression. Her life had a great importance because without her, and many others, involvement in the civil rights movement it would have not occurred with such power and force. An issue that is suppressing so many people needs to be addressed with strength, dedication, and determination, all qualities that Anne Moody strived in. With her exhaustion illustrated at the end of her book, the reader understands her doubt of all of her hard work. Yet the reader has an outside perspective and knows that Anne tells a story of success. It is all her struggles and depression that makes her story that much more powerful and ending with the greatest results of Civil Rights and Voting Rights for her and all African Americans.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” This is a strong belief Annie Wang incorporates into her novel, Lili. The main character, Lili, struggles to find what to do with herself amidst the communist oppression of China. Many of the experiences that Lili, along with other characters, face throughout the novel are directly related to Wang’s own life experiences. Three of the important values Wang shares with characters in her book are curiosity, independence and rebelliousness.
Kate the Great by Meg Cabot shows that you should not be someone you're not.
An example of this is when Elizabeth in “The Leaving”, is ordered around by her husband “get over her ‘n’ make my supper wom[a]n!”, (Wilson, 1990 p. 3). This is a strong example because she is not appreciated or respected. Even though she lives in a different culture and time frame, the same sort of situation can be observed in “Another Evening at the Club”. This occurs when Samia does not have a choice of who she marries “you're a lucky girl,... he’s a real find” (Rifaat, 1998, p. 255). Along with these two women Anilam, Aqsa has to overcome their families not approving who they want to marry or how they want to dress. Finally, Mrs. Mallard also experiences this while she does not really love her husband but cannot confess to him as he has more power over her, so she has to just put up with him. This is shown when she says “free, free, free!” (Chopin, 1894 p 2), and she is finally happy even though he had died. Since all of the women in the story live in a patriarchal society or a repression they face really similar
Dorothy Parker was a female writer in the 1920’s and is still known all around the world for her wit. Parker was a member of one of the most affluent groups in New York City at the time, the Algonquin Round Table. Besides her wit Parker also was known for her drinking problem, many suicide attempts and string of failed relationships. The most popular and prized of Parker’s works is a short story entitled “Big Blonde.” This story won the O’Henry Prize for best short story in 1929. In this story Parker creates a character who is tapped a society that revolves around a woman’s need to be nothing more than a pretty face who is always having a good time. Parker went above and beyond of showing the irony of the ideals women are held to and how they can eventually lead to the destruction of who they are. She does not write about a woman who are liberated or free, she instead shows a woman who are trapped and vulnerable. She took a very different stance then a lot of women of her time on women’s new found position in pro-suffrage society. She focuses much more on the way men saw women an amusement. In fact Parker creates women who are trapped as being a means of entertainment for the men. They are to live up to that idea and if they do not they are easily replaced with another.
The struggle for power between men and women in this story is mainly witnessed through interactions in which the female is not living up to what the men want. This makes women, like Hazel, easily replaceable in the lives of men. Women only control the power when they are agreeable therefore Parker creates women who are tapped with no plausible way to obtain power, other than being agreeable and well liked.
Education plays a big role in our daily lives. Education is commonly defined as a process of learning and obtaining knowledge. The story takes place beginning in the late 1950s to the early 2000s. Jeannette Walls is the main character of the story and the narrator. She tells the events of her life living with careless and yet loving parents. This family of six lived in many cities and towns and went through tough states to stay alive. Her mother and father never kept a good steady job, but they had great intelligence. Jeannette and her siblings barely went to school to get the proper education they needed. In the book The Glass Castle, author Jeanette Walls discovers the idea that a conservative education may possibly not always be the best education due to the fact that the Walls children were taught more from the experiences their parents gave them than any regular school or textbook could give them. In this novel readers are able to get an indication of how the parents Rex and Rosemary Walls, choose to educate and give life lessons to their children to see the better side of their daily struggles.
One example of a woman who is oppressed by men in the text is Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Although Penelope is queen of Ithaca, her power in the kingdom is limited. Her life is controlled by her son Telemachus and the Achaean suitors who have been taking advantage of the kingdom for several years. At one point in the text, Telemachus tells his mother “Words are for men, for all, especially for me; for power within this house rests here” (Homer, 7). This shows how men regard themselves as the ones with power over society, while they undervalue women’s role within society....
Ugur, Neslihan Guler. "Self-destructive forces in Oates' women." Studies in Literature and Language 4.3 (2012): 35+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
The aspect of character development plays a prominent role in various works of literature, and no exceptions arose within this novel. Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, uses detailed portions of the story to prominently display her character development and vibrantly show growth. The memoir follows the life of Jeannette and the struggles she faces along her journey. Living in a blue collar family, she faces many challenges that the average person may not deal with. Though the adventurous and wild-hearted Jeannette slowly begins to face reality and must adapt to her situations. Throughout the novel she matures and develops, altering her personality and thoughts. Several occurrences in the novel affect certain aspects of her personality and change certain beliefs that she once had. Her thoughts on her parents, the reality of the family's issues, and the beliefs of her future all begin to clear up and shift as she develops as a character.
Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she often demonstrates a sense of fear when she is sent to her bedroom. “We were afraid of the inside, the room were we slept (pg. 549).” She is intimidated by her personal space because she does not have control over it. Later, she gains control by adding lace to her side of the room; symbolically adding personality to herself and slipping into womanhood. When she felt uncomfortable she exercised her imagination, to psychologically regain control over the confusion in her life. Her subconscious effort to control confusing times were carried on to her later years as she was constantly put in difficult situations, which helped her to adjust quickly to change during adulthood. The dreams she created changed when she began to place emphasis on her appearance-that which she could control, other than past dreams of heroism that seemed so distant from reality. The Protagonist filled her childhood with much pride and maintained a consistent focused upon the activities that filled her childhood. She relished working at the side of her father, taking immense pride in every aspect of her assigned duties. She proclaimed, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride (pg. 551)” Once after her father introduced her to a feed sales man as “my new hired man (pg. 551),” the Protagonist was flooded with pride as she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (pg. 551).” In her later years her pride helped her to assemble strong self-confidence she used in her years of growing. Passion and depth were characteristics that impacted her future as a woman. Her passion and depth was revealed early on in the story ...
Winnie Foster is the first person that comes to mind regarding gender roles. Winnie Foster was “afraid to go away alone.” (Babbitt 22) For a long time people had always told Winnie that “the world was a dangerous place” (Babbitt 22). But Winnie decided to leave home and venture out in the wood, where she meets Jesse Tuck. Winnie was different from the woman during this time period. Since women during this time period had just gained more rights and freedom, and most of the women were getting married. While on the other hand Winnie had chose to be rebell...