Each of the four central characters, Helen, James, Gerry, and Lydia, can be recognized by individual and distinct traits that differentiate them from each other. The protagonist, Helen, is a hardworking woman with relatively low self-confidence who is often skeptical of people and good news that comes into her life. After losing her job, Helen works many part-time jobs in order to make ends meet and, in a parallel time line, starts up her own PR company. James is a nice, successful man who tries very hard to cheer up Helen and also has his own company. However, James isn’t entirely honest with Helen, because he hides the fact that he is married to Claudia. Gerry, in contrast to James, can be characterized as a fickle man who is both dependent on Helen for support and deceitful. Gerry’s inability to choose between Helen and Lydia, persistent lying to Helen and even Russell, and lack of income are all factors that contribute to his characterization. Lydia is the polar opposite of Helen. She is an aggressive and conniving woman who is emotionally dependent on Gerry. Her constant phone calls, plots to inform Helen of the affair, and stalker tendencies all add to her “live-wire” status. While we can become aligned with each of these characters, their actions all ultimately lead us to only become allied with Helen and James.
Howitt utilizes a sound bridge to connect the shot of Gerry helping a drunk Helen into bed with the next shot, in which Gerry is chastising himself for nearly getting caught cheating. At this point, the audience is made to feel disgusted by Gerry’s lies. He should feel bad for lying, not for nearly getting caught. While talking to himself in the mirror, Gerry states, “you’re taking to yourself in the mirror again...
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...ry and Lydia, while simultaneously causing them to cheer for the relationship between Helen and James. Elements of mise-en-scene, such as lighting, clothing choice, and setting all help further this contrast. Though the film represents a relatively short period in Helen’s life, many life-changing events occur during this time. Howitt punctuates these major events with the image of sliding doors, thereby driving home the film’s central theme of chance, possibility, and change. Our allegiance with Helen is inevitable, because we follow her story and are made to understand her motivations and agree with them; therefore, it is the allegiance, or non-allegiance, to the other characters that Howitt must work the hardest to elicit in the audience and he does so by manipulating the actions of each character to suit his needs and obtain a certain reaction from the audience.
In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood as a tale of harsh struggle and of conflicting viewpoints. The set of ideals which she developed as an individual along with those instilled within her by her parents seemingly rival those purported by society and the developed world, creating an internal struggle greater than any of her physical conflicts. Examples of such conflicts involve the abstract areas of race, wealth versus poverty, and idealism versus realism.
I chose to write about the narrator and his friends because I found there was more to them than just the bad guy persona they wanted everyone to see. I find the narrator and his friends are dynamic characters because in the end of the story they lets go of all his childish pretending and changes into the en they are supposed to be. “We were bad. We read Andre Gide and stuck elaborate poses to show we didn’t give a shit about anything.” (Boyle 529) This quote sums up that they have to...
Throughout the novel the characters are put in these situations which force them to obtain information about the people they thought they knew. The center of finding out who everyone is was brought into play through the death of Marie. The story is told by David, only twelve years old, who sees his family an community in a different light for who they truly are under there cover. By doing his own little investigations, often times eavesdropping, David saw through the lies, secures and betrayals to find the truth.
Throughout Kaye Gibbon’s novels, each unified character portrays a resemblance to overcome their obstacles through hope. In Gibbon’s first novel, Ellen Foster the main character, Ellen a young child struggles to survive and live a normal childhood. Making matters worse, Ellen’s father was a drunken alcoholic who physically abuses her mother and sexually harasses his own daughter. As a result, Ellen’s mother commits suicide and her father dies from over dosage. As her, own parents abandon their precious child; Ellen was alone in search of a new home and family. As hope motivates Ellen to seek forward and find her new home she begins to believe what an ideal family would be like, “I had not figured out how to go about getting one for the most part, but I had a feeling it could be got”. Similar in Ellen’s case, in Gibbon’s second novel A Virtuous Woman, Jack is in search to regain himself after a heartbreak loss to his wife Ruby who died several months prior from lung cancer. Jack is an old farmer and relied heavily towards Ruby. He is now left on his own, he acknowledges that only hope may lead him back on his tracks and leave all the crucial memories behind.
Another link between these three characters is their family ties. They highly regard their elders, and consider the effects of the decisions they make on t...
The central characters in both “The Yellow Wallpaper” and A Doll’s House are fully aware of their niche in society. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the narrator’s husband believes her illness to be a slight depression, and although she states "personally, I disagree with their ideas,” she knows she must acquiesce their requests anyway (Gilman 1). She says, “What is one to do?” (Gilman 1) The narrator continues to follow her husband’s ideals, although she knows them to be incorrect. She feels trapped in her relationship with her husband, as she has no free will and must stay in the nursery all day. She projects these feelings of entrapment onto the yellow wallpaper. She sees a complex and frustrating pattern, and hidden in the pattern are herself and othe...
Lori was the first one to leave for New York City after graduation, later, Jeanette followed her and moved into her habitat with her. Jeanette promptly found a job as a reporter, the two sisters were both living their dream life away from their miserable parents. It wasn’t difficult for them since they cultured to be independent and tough. Everything was turning out great for them and decided to tell their younger siblings to move in with them, and they did. Jeanette was finally happy for once, enjoying the freedom she had and not having to be moved every two weeks. She then found a guy whom she married and accustomed her lifestyle. Furthermore, her parents still couldn’t have the funds for a household or to stay in stable occupation, so they decided to move in with Jeanette and her siblings. Jeanette at that moment felt like she was never going to have an ordinary life because her parents were going to shadow her.
The second protagonist in the novel is Laura Brown, a housewife who is living in Los Angeles in 1949. Her traditional family consists of her husband Dan who is a war hero of sorts, works in an office, provides for the family while Laura statys at home and cares for the family. She has one child, Richie, and is expecting another child. The Browns live in a nice home with manicured lawns, nice Cheveorlet in the driveway, in Los Angeles. Laura smokes, reads Mrs. Dalloway, and is infaturated with Virginia Woolf and her suicide. She desires to commit suicide but opts out to leave her family and move to Canada instead. Life and death will bring the mother and son together. Laura may not have the nerve to kill herself, but her son Richard, fell to his death from a fall from the window while suffereing from AIDS.
Jeannette Walls was born into a poor family who often had to live homeless and without food. The environment in which she grew up in is what gave her the characteristics she possesses. One trait that describes Jeannette is that she is very adventurous. Since she was constantly exposed to new surroundings, she became curious of them. While she was homeless in the desert, she would play a game with her father called Monster Hunting. She grew to not be afraid of anything, since she could fight off these so called “monsters.” Also, Jeannette is very decisive. To get away from Welch, a poor town in West Virginia, she made sure that she would get enough money to move to New York. She did this by getting a job to save up money for a bus ticket and for college. Along with this, Jeannette is very ambitious. She worked very hard to get accepted into college by working for the school newspaper, since she wanted to become a journalist. On the other hand, Melba Patillo was born into a middle class family who lived in Lit...
...d longs for her elder sister and mother. Frances is a good person – at heart – and is always looking out for her younger sister. Moreover, even though she has different views that her father and will always do the opposite of what is expected of her, it is seen that this insecurity is caused by James indeed. Frances feels that in order to gain security in her life, she must perform these actions. She feels compelled to live her life the way she does. Frances’s naughty and mischievous behaviour can be viewed as a weakness she possesses, and she longs to correct these weaknesses by her actions. She is not a role model by any means, but she is by no means the Devil’s advocate. A sincere heart – compelled by circumstances – does its best to make the situation turn out for the better than the worse, and Frances, through her love for her mother, inevitably does just that.
...e relationship with men, as nothing but tools she can sharpen and destroy, lives through lust and an uncanny ability to blend into any social class makes her unique. Her character is proven as an unreliable narrator as she exaggerates parts of the story and tries to explain that she is in fact not guilty of being a mistress, but a person caught in a crossfire between two others.
Unlike Aunt Abby, James offers a more sincere regard for Frado. He buys her a puppy and often protects her from his mother’s brutal thrashings. He even intends to bring her home with him to live. He does not possess the indifference of his father or the cowardice of his sister, Jane. Being one of the few characters who emits a genuine aura of concern James i...
In “The Blind Side” Michael meets Leigh Anne, someone who takes him in at a time when he is homeless. She provides him with food, clothes, and roof to live under, as well as giving him a better education. Leigh Anne changes Michael’s life for the better, but most importantly she makes him feel loved and appreciated. In similarity, the” Freedom Writers,” Mrs. Erin earns her students’ respect by showing them love. She changes her students’, perspective about getting a school education, while at the same time she shows them a personal interest, and hope for a better future.
The irony comes into play when the truth starts to unravel and Jack finds out what really happened to him as a child and why he does not know his parents. After some coincidental events, all the main characters end up in the same room. When Lady Bracknell hears Ms. Prism’s (the woman Jack hired as his nieces governess) name she immediately asks to see her. She continues to say that Ms. Prism had wandered off with a baby years ago and asks what came about of that. Ms. Prism continues the dialog to explain how she misplaced a baby that was in her bag at a train station. Jack, thinking he might have been that very baby, retrieves the bag he was found in as an infant in which Ms. Prism identifies by some distinguishing marks to have been her own. Jack realized the woman that had been teaching his niece was his mother. But then Lady Bracknell explained that she was not but Lady Bracknell’s poor sister Mrs. Moncrieff was.
The novel explores gender roles through the characters of Mrs. Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay, and Lily. Each of these characters embodies different views in regards to gender roles. The readers are taken into their minds and thoughts and are allowed to see what each character views is the role of his/her gender.