To me, Engel's observation of “hypocritical humanity” (judging from how England was back then) was a term for the way the upper and middle classes acted towards the working class. They treated the working class like scum and morally the working/middle class should help them out and give them food but they didn't. Humanity back in those times were hypocrites and didn't do the right thing towards the poor. Using this information, I believe Laura from Katherine Mansfield story “ The Garden Party” didn't conform to Engel's observations about the “hypocrital humanity” of the English middle classes.
In Engel's “Attitudes of the Bourgeoisie”, he refers to the middle class as 'vampires' because they “suck the wretched workers dry so that afterwards they can, with consummate hypocrisy, throw a few miserable crumbs of charity at their feet” (313). What Engels is saying is that the middle class do all that they can to make the working class suffer and when they're worn out, they don't provide much to help them out; only a few crumbs to help them go through the day. Unlike the people in the middle class of England, an upper class born girl named Laura wanted to give the working class family down the hill some actual leftovers instead of just crumbs. It's human nature to help/comfort a family in need or one that's going through a death of a family member.
Laura felt unfortunate that they were still having a party after someone has been killed down the the road from where they lived. When her mom said that they only heard of the death by accident and that they should still be having the party, Laura knew it wasn't right but she “had to say 'yes' to that, but she felt it was all wrong.”(Mansfield 2587). It shows that she has sympathy for someon...
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...t just brush them off. The middle class even tried to appeal the Corn Laws so that it will benefit them. It will reduce the wages they have to pay to even out with the rest of the European countries which is not good for the working class because they need as much money as they can get. I'm pretty sure if Laura had the chance, she would give the working class people down the hill some money or more food if she went to see a working class mans dead body (which, to me, seems like a higher thing to do). Overall, the middle class do not give any effort to bring up the middle class although it is practically forbidden in that time. There was not really any communication between the working and middle classes except when they were working and they still didn't offer any help. There is just no way Laura conformed to the “hypocritical humanity” of the English middle classes.
“A maid accidentally pulled the countess’ hair while combing it; Countess Elizabeth Bathory instinctively slapped the girl on the ear, but so hard she drew blood. The servant girl’s blood spurted onto Elizabeth’s hands...the countess noticed that as the blood dried, her own skin seemed to take the whiteness and the youthful quality of the young girl’s skin.” (Rodrigues 15).
Every Sunday, Miss Brill looked forward to a wonderful day in the park. There, she would secretly dive into the lives of the surrounding human beings, taking in each of their words and actions and creating a fantasy world all of her own that she was sure she belonged in, but she was mistaken. Her fantasy world does crumble, and Miss Brill, the protagonist in the short story, “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, soon finds herself in reality. Miss Brill can be clearly seen as a flat, yet dynamic character, as can be portrayed through her thought transformation.
Carmilla is an example of a woman who loves her food far too much. Carmilla is consumed entirely by her food, even sleeping in a coffin of blood: “The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed” (Le Fanu 102). There exists a unique relationship between the vampire and their victims. Food becomes defined in terms of victimhood, distinctly separated from humanity’s general consumption of meat. The need for human victims makes hunting synonymous with courtship, as intense emotional connections are established between the vampiress and her food. As seen in the intense relationship developed between Laura and Carmilla, the vampire is “prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons” (105). For Carmilla, cruelty and love are inseparable (33). The taking of the victims’ blood for sustenance is a highly sexualized exchange of fluids from one body to another. The act of consumption is transformed into an illicit carnal exchange between the hunter and the hunted.
The narrator in the story “Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield, is telling us this story in the third person singular perspective. Our narrator is a non-participant and we learn no details about this person, from a physical sense. Nothing to tell us whether it is a friend of Miss Brill, a relative, or just someone watching. Katherine Mansfield’s Miss Brill comes alive from the descriptions we get from this anonymous person. The narrator uses limited omniscience while telling us about this beautiful Sunday afternoon. By this I mean the narrator has a great insight into Miss Brill’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and into her world as a whole, but no real insight into any of the other characters in this story. By using this point of view, we see the world through the eyes of Miss Brill, and feel her emotions, even though this third party is telling us the story. This beautiful fall afternoon in France unfolds before our eyes because of the pain-staking details given to us by the narrator. We aren’t told many things straight out, but the details are such that we can feel the chill coming into the air and see the leaves of fall drifting to the earth. The figurative language that is used is superb from beginning to end. The imagination and detail made me see what was happening and hear the band play. The characters in the park are observed through the eyes of Miss Brill, and we learn bits of information of those who catch her eye. The detail of the observations that Miss Brill ma...
The mother is doing everything she can to make Emily's life worth living. However, because the mother is trying so hard to juggle more than one job at a time she has less time with her daughter. During the Great Depression it was next to impossible to find a job. The mother would have less stress in her life if she had a strong dependable job with flexible hours so she could be with her daughter. The mother cannot care for her daughter to her full potential when all she is doing is working just to keep her daughter nourished, healthy and safe. The mother's character is living in a world where the word well-off is next to impossible to comprehend, "[she] found a job hashing at night so [she] could be with her days." (p.158). The mother wishes making money would not have to be the life she lived just to be next to her daughter. During the Great Depression this wish was impossible to fulfil. Thus leaving the mothers character in a lack of hope for a better future.
In my final paper I will argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald represents the country in relation to civilization and the city in his novel The Great Gatsby. This novel take takes place in New York City on the East Coast of the United States shortly before the start of the great depression at some point in the 1920’s. This novel is constantly comparing the fictional cities East Egg and the West Egg witch is modeled to be the two different sides of long island. The continued comparison of the society on the East side versus the West side of Long Island shows the difference that earning your wealth has on your morality compared to being born into it.
It is said in the character description that Laura “[has] failed to establish contact with reality” (Glass 83). This illustrates how Laura is childlike and naive, in that, Williams literally says that she has not established contact with reality. Laura is naive because she refuses to face life and all that comes with it, she is also childlike because she has sheltered herself and is unaware of her surroundings much as a child would be. Early on in the play the reader discovers that Laura had affections towards Jim when they were in high school. This, of course, will prove to be part of Jim’s easy manipulation of Laura. Shortly after this discovery, Laura’s gentleman caller, Jim, is invited over for dinner with the family. After having completed their evening meal, Laura and Jim go to another room and being
For centuries, gothic authors depict the vampires as evil, repulsive, and socially secluded “creatures”, leaving the audience terrified by the gruesome details of the murdering and sucking the blood to kill the victims, in order for the vampire kind to survive. However, the modern vampire is drastically pulling away from that negative connotation, and becoming difficult to differentiate amongst the public. Since many Americans are struggling to make ends meet, they tend to seek out alternative methods of achieving money, such as donating blood for a payment. This not only helps struggling families in their time of need, but also helps people struggling with organ failure. This source of saving human blood is represented in Twilight, as the Cullen family of vampires, feed exclusively on animal blood in order to save human life. Though the gruesome murdering of the human victims from a vampire attack has been taken out of today’s stories, the general gloomy and eerie mystique of...
When he asks what she gives it to him for, she replies, “A—souvenir.” Then she hands it to him, almost as if to show him that he had shattered her unique beauty. This incident changed her in the way that a piece of her innocence that made her so different is now gone. She is still beautiful and fragile like the menagerie, but just as she gives a piece of her collection to Jim, she also gives him a piece of her heart that she would never be able to regain. Laura and her menagerie are both at risk of being crushed when exposed to the uncaring reality of the world.
Most self respecting people have ethics and morals they try to abide by. They create standards that they live life by and construct their own philosophy with. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, morals and ethics are a scarce practice. Jay Gatsby lives his life by the over bearing morals and values of devotion, corruption, and his will to control.
“Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven”(Yiddish Proverb). These words apply to Katherine Mansfield’s short story, “Garden Party” as she touches on some very controversial points about the social inequality of the Sheridan family with its surrounding neighbors. A great internal and external quarrel over social class rises in the Sheridan family as Laura Sheridan, the daughter, sympathises with the less-fortunate neighbors while her mother, Mrs. Sheridan is the opposite. Mansfield illustrates to her readers the conflict within Laura in various ways, namely, using foil characters between Mrs. Sheridan and Laura, using multiple symbols and appealing to emotion to emphasize her main message of social equality.
Oliver Twist is a parody to the Victorian lifestyle. The upper classes do not care about the lower classes because their main concern is money. At this time in British history, laissez-faire capitalist beliefs dominate people’s political views. According to George Orwell, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “…refused to re...
In a lot of ways, the nineteenth Century depicted in Great Expectations is epitomic of the particular period. A lot of societal aspects correlate with the events in the book and especially the dynamical structure of the society. And even though the picture most people have of a Victorian society is set up in different compartments and highly contrasted one, the actualities of the time speak of an England adapting to industry and the ideals of the Enlightenment period. Dickens’ treatment of England at the time “is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England” (Google Scholar). He ignores the aristocratic air associated with it and instead pursues a standpoint focused on commerce. Still and all, we get the sense of how pivotal, or rather, central, this notion of compartments is to the plot of the story, especially with regard to social class. And this leads to the point; the class system of the nineteenth century. Unlike modern England and the modern world, generally, the earlier 19th century version had more defined social classes because values and beliefs about what made people who they were had, just like the physical structures, been morphing in comparison.
Laura started off in a bubble, and has lived in it all her life. She has been protected from the real world, so she has never experienced the effects of betrayal, poverty, or labor, let alone death, which she does get to experience, by the end of the story. Laura meets face to face with death, and the results of it will change her look on life forever. It is a wonder she ever had a chance to be a caring, sensitive person with a sibling like Jose. Jose is an unfeeling, heartless and self-absorbed person who is completely clueless to those around her who don’t have lots of money or expensive assets. She sings songs with mock passion:
... crop. Even to be made an employee or subject of the upper echelon is said to be an exclusive and rare state of elation. Just to exist in the thoughts of and graced by one of these lofty members of society is an honor and a privilege and we resent them for that. This ideal is personified in the elusive, swarthy, exceptional package of a vampire. Zrioka says it perfectly, “Whoever they seek out as their victim, even though it’s violent and it’s deadly, there’s a sense of being the elect – vampires don’t just go for anyone. I think this is part of the attraction, the erotic appeal of the vampire.” The rich and famous are the vampires of today. The superiority and respect they carry only makes the rest of us wish to be chosen to join their ranks, but tragically that is all we can do, wish, thus we are left with contempt for this tiny percentage and their queer beliefs.