Many might argue that sentimentalism is an act of weakness or that it’s an emotion that should only be expressed by the female sex. However, that is not true; the act of sentimentalism actually helps to prove the moral quality of a character or person. This is eminent in the story Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson in which the reader comes across many characters being sensible or acting sentimentally towards others. In the story Charlotte Temple, sentimentality is practiced amongst those characters that are benevolent; benevolent meaning a person that expresses good will, generosity, and that has the desire to help others in other words charitable. So how could this possibly be something negative or an act of weakness? The answer lies in that it’s not a bad thing and in the story the reader comes across many examples of both males and females being sentimental towards others. For instance, Mr. Temple, who is Charlotte’s father, is indeed a person that has a good heart and he is described as a sentimental or benevolent person because of the way he treats others in the sense that: “he had a heart open to every generous feeling of humanity, and a hand ready to dispense to those who wanted part of the blessings he enjoyed himself” [6]. What this means is that, not only is Mr. Temple a man, but he is also capable of feeling others pain like if it were his own and because of him being this way, he is indeed a moral person because he cares about others and does not think only about himself. A perfect example of him being benevolent or sentimental is when he helps Mr. Eldridge (who ends up being Charlotte’s grandfather); pay his debt without expecting anything in return. Another act of sentimentality or benevolence as the story call... ... middle of paper ... ... you and use you to their advantage because they know you are vulnerable and will buy into all their phony discourses as Charlotte did with La Rue. However, this doesn’t mean that sentimentalism shouldn’t be practiced because people like Mr. Temple and Mrs. Beauchamp are the ones that make the world a better place. Benevolent people like Charlotte and her father are people to look up to and to follow not only because it’s moral but because it proves you to be a humane person. To sum it all up, the act of sentimentalism helps to prove a character’s moral quality because it shows them capable of being generous and caring towards others. It does not necessarily make a person weak or a softie, but at many times could provoke others to take advantage of the sensibility in that person. However, it should be an emotion that everyone should express not only females.
In the movie “Diary of a Black Woman”, Helen is a dark complected woman who is very fancy and classy. Helen is a pretty well mannered woman , dressed neatly. Helen has every dollar wished for in the world but yet, does not own a bit of happiness even if desired. Throughout the experience of love, Helen’s personality changes; from warmly soft to a harsh cold hearted woman with a shattered heart.
One of the main themes is slavery, mainly the evil of slavery. At the very beginning of the book, readers are shown the idea that not all slave owners are indeed evil and only care about money. There are some owners who do not abuse or mistreat their slaves, however these ideas are not placed to show that the evil of slavery is conditional, but as a way to show the wickedness of slavery even in the best-case scenario. Due to the fact that even though Shelby and St. Clare show kindness towards their slaves, at the same time their ability to tolerate slavery renders them hypocritical and morally weak. In fact, this is first shown when Shelby shamefacedly breaks apart Tom’s family by selling him. Yet, the most evil of slavery does not render its head until Tom is sold to the Legree plantation, where it appears in its most hideous and naked form; the harsh and barbaric settings where slaves suffer beating, sexual abuse and murder. The play then introduces the shock that if slavery is wrong in the best of case scenario, then in the worst cases it ca...
Granny seems to be bitter about somethings, but not about the life and love she had with her husband. Granny says, “I wouldn’t exchange my husband for anybody except St. Micheal himself.” (Porter, 210) Though not ready for death, “I’m not going, Cornelia. I’m taken by surprise,” (Porter, 270) she seems to have a purpose brought by love even in death. She had a loved one that she wanted to go see. “Granny made the long journey outward, looking for Hapsy.”(Porter, 270) Her loving, though full of loss, seems a prime example of what it means to be a
Nora and Mrs. Wright’s social standing when compared to the men in each play is inferior. Both works expose their respective male characters’ sexist view of women diminishing the women’s social standing. Each work features egotistical men who have a severely inflated view of their self-worth when compared to their female counterparts. The men’s actions and words indicate they believe women are not capable of thinking intelligently. This is demonstrated in “Trifles” when Mr. Hale makes the statement about women only worrying about mere trifles. It is also apparent in “A Dollhouse” when Torvalds thinks his wife is not capable of thinking with any complexity (Mazur 17). Another common attribute is of the women’s social standing is displayed as both women finally get tired of feeling like second class citizens and stand up to the repressive people in the women’s lives (Mulry 294). Although both women share much in common in their social standing there subtle differences. Torvald’s sexist view of Nora is more on a personal level in “A Dollhouse” while the male characters’ sexist views in “Trifles” seem to be more of a social view that women are not very smart and their opinions are of little value. This attitude is apparent in “Trifles” as Mr. Hale and Mr. Henderson’s comments about Mrs. Wright’s housekeeping (Mulry 293). As the women in both works reach their emotional
By writing personal accounts of their lives, many women of the nineteenth century used the emotion of sympathy to share their feelings. According to Rosemarie Garland Thompson, "Sympathy is an effective rhetorical strategy in women's writing because it combines and embodies the fundamental elements of the feminine script." (Thompson 131) By using sympathy in their writing, Harriet Jacobs and Elizabeth Barret Browning, both nineteenth century women writers, made their readers want to help reform the South.
Men in this novel need sympathy from the women in order to prove their superiority because by getting sympathy from a woman the man is acting superior over the woman. Mr. Ramsey proves this fact when he works to receive Lily’s sympathy. This is shown when Lily thinks, “You shan’t touch your canvas, he seemed to say, bearing down on her, until you’ve given me what I want from you” (150); about Mr. Ramsey as he approaches her while she is painting. In this scene what Mr. Ramsey wants from Lily is sympathy and he acts as if he is in control over Lily and therefore can force her to give him sympathy. Eventually, Lily gives Mr. Ramsay the sympathy he wants which is shown when she thinks to herself, “Why, at this completely inappropriate moment, when he was stooping over her shoe, should she be so tormented with sympathy for him that, as she stooped too, the blood rushed to her face and thinking of her callousness (she had called him a play-actor) she felt her eyes swell and tingle with tears?” (154) and thus feels sympathy for Mr. Ramsay even when she decidedly did not want to. Not only does Lily feel sympathy for Mr. Ramsay but she also feels bad about thinking negatively about him. Lily’s feeling of guilt shows Mr. Ramsay being superior to her that is in turn an example of male supremacy.
The reader reads in order to feel sorrow for the protagonist in a manner the reader can assimilate. Yet, it seems that the nature of Margaret’s thoughts is inherently dialogic or, to work with Duke’s terms, empathic: neither Margaret nor the reader uses the text in order to solicit pity from the other. What function would a “pity party” serve a reader by herself? To the contra...
In today’s society, acts of compassion are rare as we get more and more focused on satisfying our desire for success and wealth. However, humans do sometimes show remarkable acts that melts the hearts of men and women and restore faith in humanity within those who are less optimistic. But it might not always be a kind return that you may get from such action. In the story “Sweat” by Barry Webster, a young girl named Sue allows Jimmy as an act of kindness to lick her “honey” on her body. As a result, Jimmy chokes from the honey and Sue gets more rejected from the other students at her school. By using characterization, dialogue and narration, Webster demonstrates the theme that compassion and kindness can bring more consequences than benefits when these actions are done by those who are different.
In our departure and adieu, both Mrs. Whipple and Elisa cared about how the world perceived them. They were afraid if either of them peered into a crystal creek then they might see an unholy beast abhorred by man. While Elisa’s sympathy and compassion was pure, Mrs. Whipple only cared about her own ego. Mrs. Whipple even smoke ill of the doctor when it meant her ego was threatened. She didn’t want people to think her family was poor or suffering. Her desire was personal concern, while Elisa cared about the emotions of others.
...clear that she has some sort of problem with men as we can see throughout many of her short stories, and hence the title of her collection, Give Me Your Heart, which serves as a double entendre. Men have stolen her heart and she feels it’s right to seek revenge and take “his” heart away, representing all of the men who hurt her, however it can also be interpreted as a plea for someone to love her and to give her their heart romantically as well. She accomplishes her goal of portraying love on several different levels, from unconditional to vengeful to familial, and ties them all together to address the underlying issue that love and life aren’t always the way they seem—that we should try and transcend all the wicked and all the hate and all the negative emotion that goes on in our lives, but as Joyce Carol Oates clearly depicts, it won’t be easy in the slightest.
In Anatomy of Criticism, author Northrop Frye writes of the low mimetic tragic hero and the society in which this hero is a victim. He introduces the concept of pathos saying it “is the study of the isolated mind, the story of how someone recognizably like ourselves is broken by a conflict between the inner and outer world, between imaginative reality and the sort of reality that is established by a social consensus” (Frye 39). The hero of Hannah W. Foster’s novel, The Coquette undoubtedly suffers the fate of these afore mentioned opposing ideals. In her inability to confine her imagination to the acceptable definitions of early American female social behavior, Eliza Wharton falls victim to the ambiguity of her society’s sentiments of women’s roles. Because she attempts to claim the freedom her society superficially advocates, she is condemned as a coquette and suffers the consequences of exercising an independent mind. Yet, Eliza does not stand alone in her position as a pathetic figure. Her lover, Major Sanford -- who is often considered the villain of the novel -- also is constrained by societal expectations and definitions of American men and their ambition. Though Sanford conveys an honest desire to make Eliza his wife, society encourages marriage as a connection in order to advance socially and to secure a fortune. Sanford, in contrast to Eliza, suffers as a result of adhering to social expectations of a male’s role. While Eliza suffers because she lives her life outside of her social categorization and Sanford falls because he attempts to maneuver and manipulate the system in which he lives, both are victims of an imperfect, developing, American society.
I shall endeavour to explore and analyse how women are presented in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Duffy’s “Human Interest”.
The short story Girl written by Jamaica Kincaid is a mother’s compilation of advice, skills, and life experience to her daughter. The mother believes that her offer of practical and helpful guidance will assist her daughter in becoming a proper woman, and gaining a fulfilling life and respectable status in the community. Posed against the mother’s sincere concern for her daughter’s future is Sir Walter’s superficial affection to his daughters in the novel Persuasion written by Jane Austen. Due to his detailed attention for appearance and social rank, Sir Walter has been negligent to his daughters’ interests and fails to fulfill his responsibility as a father. Throughout both literary works, the use of language and tone towards persuasive endeavors reveals the difference in family dynamics and the success of persuasion on the character’s transformation.
During the Romantic period, the Sensibility movement began: as a result, the "conduct of private affections, charity, education, sympathy, genius, honour, and even the use of reason…became political statements" (Jones 13). Romantic Sensibility essentially moralized the enactment of sensitivity towards others (Spacks 127), arguing that empathetically-based relationships bring individuals together to form a unified, respectful, and moral social sphere. Key characteristics of the movement's literary adaptation include "anti-rationalism, a focus on emotional response and somatized reactions (tears, swoons, deathly pallor), a prevailing mood of melancholy, fragmentation of form, and set-piece scenes of virtue in distress" (Manning 81). The relationship between the novel of Romantic Sensibility and the Gothic novel is worth further academic inquiry as, similar to the genre of the Gothic, there is often a tendency in novels of Romantic Sensibility to "play with excess and arousal (with all the connotations of uncontrollable sexual excitation implied)" (Manning 90).
Indeed, Victorian women are molded into the socially calibrated model of The Looking-glass self, a structural theory in which Cooley proposes that people shape their identity largely based on their understanding of how other perceive them, and the social environment thus serves as the “mirror” that reflects desirable images of themselves. According to Cooley, the stages of The Looking-glass self involves imagining how one looks to others, imagining how other are judging her, and finally developing herself through such possible judgement. A hypothesis can be formed here, that Victorian women must develop this looking-glass self by concealing socially or individually unacceptable impulses from their consciousness. In the case of Clarissa, she represses her rather primitive sexual feelings toward Sally for fear of social judgement, and must construct an identity reflective of the feminine qualities desired by the society. But Clarissa’s looking-glass self is quite problematic, because it is only a manifestation of her attempt to repress real emotions. All forms of repression, according to Freud, cause disease within the mind and body— they will gradually boil inside the beings and finally explode. Interestingly, Clarissa never “explodes” her repressed feelings