In the story The Third Wish by Joan Aiken, Mr. Peters was going through the forest and heard a strange cry and sounds of something moving around farther into the forest. Mr. Peters thought someone was in trouble so he went toward the sound to see what was going on. As he got closer to where the sound was coming from he saw that it was a swan. The swan was entangled in the thorns on the outside of the canal and Mr. Peters freed the swan. Mr. peters was given three wishes from the kind because of his good deed. Mr. peters wasn’t quite sure what to do with his three wishes because he was very content with his life as it was and that the magic could bring trouble. Although Mr. peters had contentment he was lonely and used his first wish for a beautiful wife. This essay will discuss how although Mr. peters thought a wife would bring him happiness he would end up being happier with the life he was already living before the wishes. …show more content…
Peters and his new wife where happy but as time passed she grew sad. One day when Mr. Peters was walking past the river he noticed Leita next to the river with a swan resting on her and she was crying. He asked her what’s wrong and she reveals to him that she is a swan and that she missed her family. At this point he realized that the swan he saved was the wife that he had wished for. Mr. peters did not like to see his wife sad even as they tried to make it work. He even built a seat next to the river so that she could still be close to her family. She continued to be sad and depressed and this made him feel bad. He knew that he was already content with his life before her and it wasn’t fair that she had to be away from her family. Mr. Peters used his second wish to turn Leita back into a swan so that she could be with her
Mr. Pontellier was a very demanding, know it all, kind of man. He expected his wife Edna to come to him at every beck and call. He never let Edna make any decisions of her own. For example, Edna couldn’t sleep one night, so she grabbed a shawl and sat at on her porch for a few early morning hours while her husband slept. He awoke, without her beside him, and demanded that she come in and go to bed. Why couldn’t she stay out on that porch and dream of good thoughts? She was a very unhappy woman, and many nights, she would cry for hours about her unhappiness.
When Mrs Hale and Mrs. Peters first walk into Minnie Wrights house, they see how lonely and unkept her house was. The men could not understand why a woman would keep her house in that condition, but the women determine how sad and depressed Mrs. Wright was. "'I might 'a' known she needed help! I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren't—why do you and I underst...
On one side, she is married to the law, and on the other side, she understands what Minnie has been through. Her husband used to mentally abuse her to the point where she is now basically secluded from everyone and everything in the world. Mr. Hale even makes the comment, “Though I said at the same time that I didn’t know what his wife wanted made much difference to John” (260). The reader feels sympathy for Minnie throughout the story and gets a feeling of justification for her killing her husband and getting revenge. Mrs. Peters seems to have a hard time deciding whether to side with her inner feelings and cover for Minnie or to side with the law.
“WC”, written in romantic style, emphasises his inner turmoil through an array of poetic techniques entrenched within a cynical yet lethargic tone. “Nine and fifty swans” exemplifies the misery of his single life by juxtaposing the strength in unity of the swans. This enduring symbol of swans in his poetry evokes empathy towards his depressed state as he continues to elevate the imagery of the swans by juxtaposing their unity “cold companionable streams” to his solitude.
Why would a married woman go out, spend the night with a man whom she barely knows, when she has a wonderful, devoted husband and child? Mrs. Mallard's cry of ultimate relief and the joy she felt when she learned of her husband's deathis intolerable.
In Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Happy Endings,” the central theme of fiction provides several different kinds of marriages and relationships that ultimately result in the same ending. The “Happy Endings” shows that it’s difficult to have complete control over day-to-day events. No matter how hard society tries to achieve the perfect life, it does not always go as planned. It doesn’t matter if the characters are bored and depressed, confused and guilty, or virtuous and lucky; the gradual path of version A is not always in reach.
The poem Leda's sister and the Geese is about where Leda went that led up to her encounter with Zeus. She then goes home whimpering and tells her mother that she's been raped by a swan and she fears she's pregnant. Her mother then makes her sister take on all of the chores while she "takes it easy."
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
“The Third WIsh” by Joan Aiken is a fairytale that mostly takes place in part of the Savernake forest at the back of the canal. Mr. Peters and Leita are the main the characters. In the story Mr. Peter shows that making selfish choices can have consequences. When he gets the three wishes he makes a very selfish first wish. He loves the wish for a little bit but he starts to see that his wish makes Leita, the swan, a very unhappy person so he takes his second wish to make her happy again.
...swan and paganism, both being held in a negative light. The swan becomes a sort of eternal damnation, or exile for the innocent children of Lir, as they were exposed to the wicked ways Aoife, the druid of the tale. In consequence, magic and the belief system of the celt offers no help, not even to the God of the Sea, Lir himself. The only way the children of Lir can be saved is by the healing force of christianity. To conclude, the form of the swan in the is a clearly negative symbol of paganism and those who practiced it, by which can only be saved by the acceptance of christianity into the country and the people.
The swan is desperate in trying to escape the darkness yet waits until the final bit of light no longer lingers around the swan fly off, as if the swan were a reincarnate of the lost loved one and it needed a final chance to say goodbye and then flies off to
Most women in Mrs Mallard’s situation were expected to be upset at the news of her husbands death, and they would worry more about her heart trouble, since the news could worsen her condition. However, her reaction is very different. At first she gets emotional and cries in front of her sister and her husbands friend, Richard. A little after, Mrs. Mallard finally sees an opportunity of freedom from her husbands death. She is crying in her bedroom, but then she starts to think of the freedom that she now has in her hands. “When she abandoned herse...
She would not have grieved over someone she did not love. Even in the heat of her passion, she thinks about her lost love. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked safe with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. Her love may not have been the greatest love of all time, but it was still love. Marriage was not kind to Mrs. Mallard, her life was dull and not worth living, her face showed the years of repression.
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...
Wright was described as a beautiful women filled with such joy and life until she married John Wright. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale feels sorry for her because her husband treated her so bad. Due to female bonding and sympathy, the two women, becoming detectives, finds the truth and hides it from the men. The play shows you that emotions can play a part in your judgement. Mrs. Peter’s and Mrs. Hale felt sorry that Mrs. Wright had one to keep her company no kids and she was always left alone at home. “yes good; he didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his debt. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters just to pass the time of day with him. Like a raw wind that goes to the bone. I should of think she would have wanted a bird. But what you suppose went with it?” Later on in the play the women find out what happens to the bird. The bird was killed the same way Mrs. Wright husband which leads to the motive of why he was killed. Mrs. Wright was just like the bird beautiful but caged no freedom not being able to live a life of her own. Always stuck in the shadows of her husband being told what to do and