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Influence of history on literature
Analysis of the setting of Wuthering heights
Analysis of the setting of Wuthering heights
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There are various details that the author makes obvious during this story about the wife’s character, life and environment. He does this to set up her actions during the story and to give the reader some background information so they are able to imagine things from her perspective.
The first thing that becomes clear to the reader when reading this story is that the drover’s wife lives in a very harsh environment. It is described as being a dangerous and monotonous place to live, with the, “everlasting, maddening sameness of the stunted trees”. She looks out to, “bush with no horizon”. The environment’s hostility is further shown by her flashbacks which look at fires, floods and vicious animals that have come from the bush around her house. In this area she is also isolated from the rest of the world; it is nineteen miles from the nearest residence. This isolation means that she rarely sees other adults, with monthly visits from her brother in law often the only contact with the rest of the world. It is also evident that her house is primitive and she has very little. The house i...
This story represents the suffering induced by the isolation. In the time period on which this history was reflected, it was socially tolerable for wives to be
As the story begins, the character of the husband has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, is narrow-minded, and is jealous of his wife’s friendship with a blind man named Robert. His constantly complains that “a blind man in my house was not something [he looked] forward to” (362). The close outside friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert provokes his insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten years and during those years, they have exchanged countless tapes regarding experiences they have gone through. Because of this, her husband feels “she [has] told him everything or it so it seemed” (363) about their relationship.
The narrator begins the story by recounting how she speculates there may be something wrong with the mansion they will be living in for three months. According to her the price of rent was way too cheap and she even goes on to describe it as “queer”. However she is quickly laughed at and dismissed by her husband who as she puts it “is practical in the extreme.” As the story continues the reader learns that the narrator is thought to be sick by her husband John yet she is not as convinced as him. According
The narrator also feels intimidated by his wife?s relationship with the blind man. When he is telling of her friendship with Robert h...
The beginning of the short story starts with the narrator's description of her mental state and the perception of her family members towards her condition. The narrator talks about, despite how she feels, her family, especially her physician husband John, did not take her condition seriously. She even mentions that John being
The narrator’s wife knew Robert for a long time because she used to work for him and his wife had died so she was the one who was taking care of him since he was all alone. “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit” (Carver 2) said the narrator. The narrator did not like the blind man because he was extremely close with his wife and they were always sending each other tapes in the mail to keep in touch. Since the narrator was not such a big fan of the blind man, he did not understand why it was such a important time when Robert had asked to touch his wife’s face during her last day working with him. She was working with him all summer but he was blind so he did not even know what she looked like so when he touched her face, she wanted to write a poem about it since it was an important time during her summer job helping him. A while after the narrators wife worked with Robert, they ended up communicating again and she sent him a recording of her talking about her recent life. “She loved her husband but she didn’t like it where they lived and she didn’t like it that he was a part of the military-industrial thing” (Carver 2). The narrator was getting jealous of this relationship between the two of them because it seemed to be going better then his and his wife’s relationship. Since the blind man moved into their house for a period of time,
To begin with, the narrator husband name is John, who shows male dominance early in the story as he picked the house they stayed in and the room he kept his wife in, even though his wife felt uneasy about the house. He is also her doctor and orders her to do nothing but rest; thinking she is just fine. John is the antagonist because he is trying to control her without letting her input in and endangers her psychological state. It is written in a formal style, while using feign words.
Since this story is written as a diary, it allows us to feel close to the narrator and connect our inner thoughts. John loves his wife, but by trying to hide his wife’s mental illness by referring to it as temporary nervous depression, which shows us a glimpse of how the women and the mental issue were seen in the nineteenth century. It displays John being a dominant figure and how the narrator
The main character tells us that she has a nice family that consists of her husband John and a little baby, but John does unusual things that someone would not expect in a normal marriage. She says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” (Gilman 647). Men back then did not treat or think highly of women due to men being more superior than them. John also seems to complain
Charles Chesnutt was an African American author who was born on June 20, 1850. Chesnutt was well known for his short stories about the issues of social and racial identity in post- reconstruction south. Chesnutt’s well-known example of his collection of short stories “The Wife of his Youth: And other Stories of the Color Line” examines issues of discrimination that permeate within the African American community. His most anthologized short story “The Wife of his Youth” explores the issue racial passing. The character Mr. Ryder attempts to assimilate into the white majority in a post- reconstruction American society. Mr. Ryder’s hopes to assimilate becomes an obsession. His opportunity for assimilation arrives through a widow name of Mrs. Molly Dixon,
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.
Since the narrator is so unaware of the thoughts and feeling of others, he has an empty relationship with his wife. They coexist together, but they do not actually interact with each other. “My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time.” (Carver, 2013, p. 2686), so the narrator was “glad for the company.” (Carver, 2013, p. 2686). After the epiphany the narrator had while drawing the cathedral with Robert, I believe he and his wife will have a better relationship. The narrator will not be quite as jealous of her relationship with Robert, and he may even take the time to listen to future tapes with her as well. I think the narrator will pay more attention to his wife and what she is really saying in their future conversations. By doing this, the narrator will become better acquainted with his wife; and they will no longer coexist, but they will participate in activities together. The epiphany the narrator had will also increase his self-awareness. Once he is more a...
Now that we have a little background on the author, we can take a closer look at the actual work and its characters. The two main characters of the story a narrator and her husband, John, and the story takes place in the 19th century. Life for the two is like most other marriages in this time frame, only the narrator is not like most other wives. She has this inner desire to be free from the societal roles that confine her and to focus on her writing, while John in content with his life and thinks that his wife overreacts to everything. Traditionally, in this era, the man was responsible for taking care of the woman both financially and emotionally, while the woman was solely responsible for remaining at home. This w...
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...