Friendships Can Change Someone’s Identity
“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light” -Helen Keller (brainy quotes). The importance of this quote is to show that in both books, the protagonists try to cling to these friendships because it is just easier to go through the dark times in their lives with someone by their side. Cat’s Eye, and A Separate Peace are both narratives surrounding the influence of friendship on one’s identity. The two novels highlight how the protagonists are affected by their superiors and how their character development is shaped by those around them. As a result of the influences by their friendships, both Elaine and Gene’s identities worsen. The two stories display how one’s identity
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In Cat’s Eye, Elaine states that “I see that there will be no end to imperfection, or to do things the wrong way. Even if you grow up, no matter how hard you scrub, whatever you do, there will always be some other stain or spot on your face or stupid act, somebody frowning” (Attwood 187). The quotation showcases Elaine’s understanding of the people around her. Elaine identifies the inevitability of imperfection as she realizes that people will always be unhappy in some way. As a result of the scrutiny from the people around her, Elaine develops into an apathetic character who no longer cares. Elaine also states that “Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened” (Attwood 293). This quote is important because she says this shows how her own personality turns her into a control freak, further worsening her identity. Also, another importance of this quote is to show that Elaine is someone who is going through a lot of different experiences, both physically and mentally. For example, with Cordelia constantly tormenting her physically when she was younger, and mentally when she is older. In A Separate Peace, Gene talks about …show more content…
In Cat’s Eye Elaine says that “This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea” (Attwood 567). This displays that Elaine absolutely wants the friendship with Cordelia to work out and in the end, as cliché as it sounds, readers see two women laughing over a cup of tea . This blurs the identity of Elaine because she tries to be friends with Cordelia, but it does not happen between them because of their differences. This later turns Elaine into a train wreck when she realizes that she is the one that shapes into who Cordelia once was. Another situation is when Elaine talks about, “Cordelia is my friend. She likes me, she wants to help me, they all do. They are my friends, my girlfriends, my best friends. I’ve never had any before and I’m terrified of losing them” (Attwood 162). It shows that Elaine certainly wants to be liked by her friends, especially Cordelia, but that is not the outcome, because Cordelia then goes on to bully and pester her constantly. She tries not to fight back against Cordelia because she genuinely does not want to feel alone and wait to have friends, thereby blurring her identity of who she truly is. In A Separate Peace, Gene says, “What was I doing up here anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into stupid things like this? Was he getting some kind of hold over me?” (Knowles
Friendship is a necessity throughout life whether it is during elementary school or during adulthood. Some friendships may last a while and some may last for a year; it depends on the strength of the bond and trust between the two people. In the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the main characters, Gene and Finny, did not have a pure friendship because it was driven by envy and jealousy, they did not feel the same way towards each other and they did not accurately understand each other.
In A Separate Peace, Gene has to go to school during WWII. He finds a friend named Phineas to help him through all the struggles school can give you. Gene doesn’t understand until the end of the book that Phineas pushed him to do things that he never thought he could. Even though they had their struggles, they were friends until the end. This is almost like what we see in the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. In this book, Christopher's father was his best friends. He always made sure he was okay. When Christopher learned he was lied to about his mother and that his father killed Wellington, he stopped trusting everyone. In the end of the story, Christopher's father ended up being there for him and he regained all the trust that was lost between them. Both of these stories show how important friendship can
Throughout the novel, A Separate Peace, the author John Knowles conveys many messages of symbolism. The symbolism can be found in an array of ways, ranging from internal war, to the theme of human aggression, and a variety of religious principles. The main characters, Gene and Phineas, and their story could be paralleled to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. The similarities can be seen in the way in which in both of the stories, everyone is living in perfect harmony and peace until something comes along to disrupt it. Also in how the main characters do something out of jealousy, greed, and selfishness; and in addition, how Finny's fall out of a tree relates to the “Fall of Mankind.”
In examining the two distinct characters of Nel (Wright) Greene and Sula Peace from Toni Morrison's Sula, a unique individual soul emerges from the two women. This soul takes into account good, bad, and gray area qualities. They gray area qualities are needed because, while Nel exhibits more of the stereotypical "good" qualities than Sula, the stereotypes of good and bad don't fit the definition completely. Nel and Sula combined create a type of ying and yang soul, each half including some of the other half. While at times the two women are polar opposites of one another in point of view, they arrive at their opinions with the help of the other. The two characters need each other in order to exist to the extent that they become "two throats and one eye" (Morrison 2167). A physical example of how connected the two girls are is seen when they line up head to head forming a straight, continuous, and complete line (2124).
Claudia has a strong desire to be included, but her different opinions about life unfortunately create difficulties for her fitting into society. She sees the world from a very different perspective than others. From very early on, Claudia's desires differ from the majority's opinion. She desires to have emotions; society,though, desires possessions. Furthermore, Claudia is physically revolted by what seems to be the epitome of beauty in society's eyes. She feels that she is the only one who feels that little white baby dolls with yellow hair and blue eyes are not beautiful. In a bold attempt to destroy the common perception of beauty, Claudia mangles the dolls she receives, "to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me" (20). She desires to be included in the unity of society. However, Claudia wants to be included on her own terms. She does not want to limit or conform her beliefs to fit what society wants her ...
The first taste of this newfound freedom is the satisfaction that Edna feels in being able to provide for herself with her own money. The fact that she no longer has to rely on her husband’s money breaks the last tie that she had with him: "I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence."(80) In her mind now, her marriage is dead, and Mr. Pontellier has no control over her. Financial freedom is not the only thing the pigeon house gives to Edna; it also allows her both physical and spiritual freedom. When Edna kisses Arobin in her husband’s house, she feels "reproach looking at her from the external things around her which he had provided for her external existence."(84) Yet, her first night at the pigeon house she spends with Arobin, and this time feels no reproach or regret. As for the spiritual ramifications provided by her new home, Chopin writes, "There was a feeling of descending in the social scale, with the corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual.., she began to look with her own eyes... no longer was she content to feed upon opinion."(94) The pigeon house provides a way for Edna to escape from the society that she hates. She has the freedom to make the decisions in her life now; and she decides that she is going to live life by her own rules, not the rules that society has laid out for her. When she is within her home, she is free from the pressures of being the "mother women" which society forces her to be. The pigeon house nourishes this newfound freedom, allowing it to grow and gain strength.
Evelyn remains a disconnected personality and expresses little emotion throughout her presentation of Adam to which she calls a “sculpture”, a “base material” , and “my creation” which were confronting terms which shocked the audience as they too were manipulated by Evelyn and were not expecting this conclusion, for their love to be an experiment for artistic purposes because “art must be created. Whatever the cost”. This scene is especially confronting to the audience and Adam because Labute structured the play to lull the audience to a sense of belief and security in the relationships only to cause them pain and discomfort when the truth is revealed. This truth makes moments which were previously humorous into sinister lines such as “What’d she do, give you a haircut and a blow job and now you’re her puppy?!” the audience develops a hatred towards Evelyn for her lack of remorse as she justifies her action as “following in a long tradition of artists who believe that there is no such concept as religion or government… only
This key moment also reveals certain character aspects in both Cordelia and Elaine that continue throughout the bullying period, for example Cordelia's judgmental attitude "her eyes are measuring" or " Cordelia is looking past me to where my parents are." To me, this first meeting seems too rich on detail, too unbelievable because of the amount of detail that the adult Elaine has remembered. I cannot remember so far back as to what another person's eyes looked like even yesterday, perhaps what they said made a deep impact and I would have remembered it, but surely a conversation between two girls when they were eight years old would not have been remembered with such great accuracy so many years afterwards. Soon after Cordelia's arrival she begins to intimidate Elaine, albeit unintentionally, by leading Elaine to make judgements and comparisons which she had not made before "It occurs to be for the first time that we are not rich." Showing the early signs of pressure and bullying starting to happen. Much of Cordelia's character is also related to the audience at this point, her grownup behaviour is revealed "She has a smile like a grown-up", "But children don't shake hands like this", "I feel shy with Cordelia", as is her childish nature, "The soft squishy kind, like peanut butter".
On pg.66, there is another example from the reaction of Fern’s doll, “‘I said, ‘That’s not self-hatred. That’s her
...lized." Alice had a daughter, my mother, Elaine, who completed her high school and even graduated from college. Elaine hoped, just as countless generations before her had, to achieve a better life. When Elaine's husband walked out on her and her six children, she feared that her hope would not be realized. But she was wrong. She raised her children well and sent every one off to college, each bearing the hopes of a better life. And now that it is my turn, I have more reason than ever to seek out the best education I can.
She is confused as to why her and Jenny’s bond (relationship) is not similar to how it was before the accident and not to mention, that Jenny constantly reminds her that she acts differently, refers to her as Gail and “think[s] that [her] sister is dead”. In addition, her mom would continuously argue to Jenny that when people go to surgery “they are still themselves” yet, whenever Alice would look at her mom, her mother “avoid[s] her eyes” which makes Alice “guilty for thinking that [she is] not the same daughter she knew before”. Nevertheless, Alice completely changes her mindset when she meets up with Mr. Jarred, she turns out to be assertive and assured. She grows awareness and security that she is still herself when Mr. Jarred looks her in the eyes and said “that [he] didn’t see [his] daughter” in them. Alice “wrote her initials, ACS” on the sidewalk as a reminder that though her family may forever doubt her existence, she believes that she is the same person no matter what. Lena Coakley successfully made Alice into an exceptionally effective character due to the fact that she was once conflicted and hesitant to her surroundings but turns out to be very assertive and substantially resilient to changes in her body and her situation after all, which defines her as a dynamic
...four page conversation with her supposed ‘friend’), "what if there's someone with bluer eyes?"(Morrison, 201-204) At the end of the day, there will always be someone out there more beautiful than you, and Pecola seems to be an example of how you can drive yourself crazy if you don't face this fact. Pecola, who, for her entire life, has gone unnoticed by the eyes of others and in turn has been unable to see herself and to realize her own self-worth, has now manufactured a way to see herself. Her imaginary friend is the companion she has never had, as well as the devoted admirer of her blue eyes. Pecola, who could not figuratively see herself before, has remedied the problem. Now, she literally sees herself in the most twisted and tragic way possible. We see Pecola cling to the standards of the white world, all the way to the end, even as her sanity deteriorates.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the character Claudia struggles with a beauty standard that harms her sense of self-esteem. Claudia tries to make sense of why the beauty standard does not include black girls. The beauty standard determines that blonde-haired blue-eyed white girls are the image of beauty and therefore they are worthy of not only attention, but are considered valuable to American culture of the 1940s. Thus, learning she has no value or beauty as a black girl, Claudia destroys her white doll in an attempt to understand why white girls are beautiful and subsequently worthy, socially superior members of society. In destroying the doll, Claudia attempts to destroy the beauty standard that works to make her feel socially inferior and ugly because of her skin color. Consequently, Claudia's destruction of the doll works to show how the beauty standard was created to keep black females from feeling valuable by producing a sense of self-hate in black females. The racial loathing created within black women keeps them as passive objects and, ultimately, leads black women, specifically Pecola, to destroy themselves because they cannot attain the blue eyes of the white beauty standard.
Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, Pecola Breedlove desires the acceptance and love of society. The image of "Shirley Temple beauty" surrounds her. In her mind, if she was to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. The idea that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole life. "If [I] looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would say, `Why look at pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes'" (Morrison 46). Many people have helped imprint this ideal of beauty on her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society's norm, treats her as if she were invisible. "He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper... see a little black girl?" (Morrison 48). Her classmates also have an effect on her. They seem to think that because she is not beautiful, she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery.
Friendship is the most wonderful relationship that anyone can have. Ideally a friend is a person who offers love and respect and will never leave or betray us. Friends can tell harsh truths when they must be told. There are four different types of friends: True friends, Convenient friends, Special interest friends, and historical friends. To have friendship is to have comfort. In times of crisis and depression, a friend is there to calm us and to help lift up our spirits.