Scarlett Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley "Scarlett" is about a southern woman who had survived the Civil War, had been widowed twice with two children. She got married again to Rhett Butler, and they had a daughter who was killed when she fell off a horse. Since the death of the child, her husband did not want anything to do with Scarlett. Rhett gave Scarlett all the money she needed, but she wanted him. Heartbroken, she went to Ireland where her father came from. She did not tell anyone in America that she was going, except for her lawyer. She met her Irish relatives, and loved them. She bought a town and a Big House in Ireland and had it refurbished. Scarlett found out that she was pregnant with Rhett's child, but before she could tell him, he divorced her and married someone else. She vowed to not tell Rhett about the baby until it was grown, even though she loved him. She told her Irish friends that she was a widow and that her two children lived with her sister on a plantation in Georgia, which she owned two-thirds of. She gave birth to a girl on Halloween and a wise old woman had to deliver her because the doctor couldn't get there. The Irish called the woman a witch and the baby a changeling because of when she was born for they were very superstitious people. They never liked the little girl and were always scared of her. One of Scarlett's cousins in Ireland was a priest, whose name was Colum O'Hara, and they had become good friends. He taught her all about how the Irish relatives and friends were at war with the English who had bought most of the land, and most were not good landlords. The landlords evicted people and burned their houses because they only wanted the land. Scarlett hired alot of these people to work in her Big House and raise crops for her. She also gave them places to live. Colum took Scarlett to a horse sale in another county one day and she was bidding on a horse that she didn't even want because she saw Rhett Butler and relized that he wanted that horse. She was the highest bidder and got the horse which resulted in her going to fox hunts with the English and spending alot of time with them.
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is the story of an African boy, Kek, who loses his father and a brother and flees, leaving his mother to secure his safety. Kek, now in Minnesota, is faced with difficulties of adapting to a new life and of finding his lost mother. He believes that his mother still lives and would soon join him in the new found family. Kek is taken from the airport by a caregiver who takes him to live with his aunt. It is here that Kek meets all that amazed him compared to his home in Sudan, Africa. Home of the brave shows conflicts that Kek faces. He is caught between two worlds, Africa and America. He feels guilty leaving behind his people to live in a distant land especially his mother, who he left in the midst of an attack.
The novel Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler is a beautifully thought out book that follows the complicated life of seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe as he seeks forgiveness for his sins both from himself and from God. Ian blamed himself for causing his older brother, Danny’s suicide and his guilt slowly ate away at him until he was drawn into the Church of Second Chance. By this time, Ian was in college and both Danny’s daughter and step-children were orphaned and being taken care of by his elderly parents. So Reverend Emmett, the pastor of Ian’s newfound church, decided that the only way Ian could find forgiveness from God and from himself was to quit college and offer up all his time to raise Danny’s children. The plot spans the time frame of about 25 years, in which time Ian and the three children slowly mature and become very developed, intricate characters, and the story takes place in the city of Baltimore through the years 1965 to 1990. Anne Tyler spins a very believable tale, using a writing style that easily reminds the reader how quickly life goes by.
"Good Country People", by Flannery O’Connor, presents us with a look into the monotonous lives of three women living together on a rural farm. All three women are set in their old-fashioned ways, having experienced very little of life, out on the farm. A bible salesman named Manley Pointer, appearing like nothing more than simple, "good country people"(1), pays them a visit one day. It turns out that this simple countryboy is actually a brilliant con artist who scams the pretentious daughter, Hulga (also known as Joy) into removing her wooden leg, which he proceeds to steal. A great change in Hulga is triggered by her experience with Manley Pointer. Although it was a cruel scam, the bible salesman helps her to see the truth about her education and human nature. Hulga realizes that in addition to book smarts, people skills are also crucial in navigating the real world.
There is plenty of opportunity for interpretation in Carter’s writing, particularly in her book ‘The Bloody Chamber’ which is commonly considered to be her masterwork, brimming with intertextualities and ambiguities. Some may find her work to be excessively violent or savage, perhaps even alienating. Yet others may have found this no-holds-barred approach to be exhilarating and refreshing in comparison to other authors of her time. In her re-writing of Perrault and Beaumont’s classic tales, Carter proposes a reading of several well-known stories with intent to unveil through a feminist perspective the ideological content they present. “The Bloody Chamber” is her take on the tale of Bluebeard; “The Werewolf” is her variation of the tale of Little Red Riding Hood; and “The Snow Child” is a very brief but equally powerful story based on the tale of Snow White. Whilst some may find her writing to be ‘grossly repellent’ and most certainly did at the time of its original publication, it remains clear that there are numerous aspects of intertextuality within her writing which delve beyond the face value of her work, that there is much latent content within every story in the collection.
Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, a heartbreaking book about a 50-year-old woman's sudden diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is a member of the Dementia Advocacy, Support Network International and Dementia USA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association. Genova's work with Alzheimer's patients has given her an understanding of the disorder and its affect not only on the patient, but on their friends and family as well (Simon and Schuster, n.d.).
From an early age Jane is aware she is at a disadvantage, yet she learns how to break free from her entrapment by following her heart. Jane appears as not only the main character in the text, but also a female narrator. Being a female narrator suggests a strong independent woman, but Jane does not seem quite that.
I chose to watch Gone with the Wind for my epic movie. I really enjoyed the movie. Gone with the Wind is about a girl named Scarlett O'Hara is the daughter of an Irish immigrant who in 1861 owns a plantation named Tara in Georgia. Scarlett is infatuated with Ashley Wilkes, who, although attracted to her, marries his cousin, Melanie Hamilton. At the party announcing Ashley's engagement to Melanie, Scarlett meets Rhett Butler, who has a reputation as a rascal. As the Civil War begins, Scarlett accepts a proposal of marriage to a man who she does not love and later dies in war. After the war, Scarlett inherits Tara and manages to keep the place going. When desperate measures take place and Scarlett can’t get money to pay for Tara she marries a wealthy man who later dies attacking the men that assaulted her. After that Rhett confesses his love and they get married, but when things get rough and Scarlett’s true colors appear he packs up and leaves.
Political philosopher and social theorist Thomas Sowell has once said, “It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” It is inevitable to meet an ignorant person around each corner that one turns. It is up to the victim to either let the ignorant person corrupt him or to let the victim become smarter. One of America’s greatest activists, Martin Luther King, believed that “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” With this in mind, “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all” (Kennedy).
Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.
When one no longer relies upon society to formulate their most basic moral principles, the result is individualism. In Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, this concept of virtuous individualistic thinking is advocated through her characters as well as the roles they play within the collectivist, altruistically-dominated world they exist in. On the surface, architect Howard Roark and author Lois Cook both seemingly demonstrate individualistic qualities through their condemnation of society. However, if one were to look at the cores of their personas, he or she would find that they are indeed polar opposites.
The middle of this chronicle really puts our petty protagonist to the test. After the Confederates lost the Civil War, Scarlett makes her way home to her beloved plantation to find her mother dead and sisters bedridden with illnesses. Only a few of their slaves remain after formal emancipation, and after Ellen O’Hara’s death, Scarlett’s father is in no emotional state to oversee affairs. The wellbeing of her family and plantation are all left up to Scarlett. To be fair to her, she does a good job for the first few months. But soon enough, the big bad wolves come in to demand the O’Hara’s pay taxes on Tara. The consequences to not doing so are high. Scarlett doesn’t have any money to pay them, but she’d rather let Tara burn than give it to the tax collectors. When Scarlett returns to Atlanta after a grueling few seasons at Tara, she decides that she wants to get the money she so desperately needs from Rhett. She thinks, “She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged. Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate...If she could somehow manage to marry him while he was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should he be executed” (565). Throughout the story, it’s made pretty clear that once Scarlett sets her eyes on something, she’ll go to any length to get it. In the beginning, it’s Ashley Wilkes in a pathetic attempt to make him jealous. Now, it is money she needs, and money she will have. Scarlett can’t even think about losing her home, much less Rhett’s feelings while she attempts to exploit him. However, her manipulation of Rhett shows a slight character shift in terms of her perspective. Earlier, Scarlett is utterly convinced in her charm and believes it’ll get her anything she wants. Now, Scarlett shows a bit more desperation in getting what she needs. Finally, Scarlett realizes that life isn’t a
"A Woman’s Place", the name of the commencement speech given by Naomi Wolf at the Scripps College graduation in 1992; contrasts the independent and the dependent woman. In today’s society, there are two different types of women: the woman who has a good head on her shoulders and knows where she is going in the world, and the woman who seeks dependence within the masculine world. Just as they were thirty years ago, women are still not considered to be equal to men. They are more or less looked at as being second to men.
Memories are a stockpile of good and bad experiences that are retained of a people, places. How do you remember your childhood memories? Do certain people, places or things trigger these memories to the past? Does the knowledge of these experience still affect your life today? Throughout the novel My Antonia, Jim's nostalgia for the past is represented by nature, symbolic elements, and above all Antonia.
Elizabeth Gaskell's Nineteenth Century novel, Mary Barton, is an example of social realism in its depiction of the inhumanities suffered by the impoverished weavers of Manchester, England.
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.