The Essence of Rebirth and Death in Literature Literature has always been a powerful way for people to express their ideas, opinions, and feelings. Authors often use literature to depict aspects of society that can affect a man or woman’s life. In the stories, “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” Life in the Iron Mills, “Barbie Doll,” and The Awakening the women of the stories do not seem to adapt to societal expectations. The inadequacy of the women of these stories to meet the view of society has lead to either a rebirth or ultimately a drive to suicide. In D.H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” rebirth is a central theme of the story. Lawrence uses his main character, Mabel, to take part in this transformation. Mabel’s role in society is defined by the death of her mother, her father’s occupation, as the title suggests, and how her life is altered by the death of her father. She finds herself alone, her household in ruins, and all her money gone. She is constantly being pressured by her siblings to come to terms with what she will be doing with the rest of her life. Her brothers are eager to make sure she or someone else takes responsibility for her life. Mabel feels the pressure of having to prove herself. She is impassive and almost paralyzed with fear about her future. It is because of her unappeasable life that she seeks a way to find fulfillment. The only way she feels she can pursue this is to be reunited with her beloved mother. When she goes to the graveyard where her mother is buried she carries with her shears, a sponge, and scrubbing brushes to clean the headstone and in a sense prepares herself for her own death. While she is at the grave sight Dr. Ferguson passes by. He is moved by the way she takes responsibility for her mother’s plot. At this point he realizes how in touch she is with the nonliving world. One analyst says, “His quick (alive) eyes sees her tending the grave as if spellbound, and he is touched by her conjunction with the world of death” (Meyers 347). At the same time Mabel with her life in ruins, her parents gone, her brothers close to striking out on their own, and all her financial resources gone, decides it would be better to be with her mother by taking her life. She plans to do this by drowning herself. ... ... middle of paper ... ...er’s Daughter” and Life in the Iron Mills, both Mabel and Deb experience a rebirth that challenged society to accept them as they accepted themselves. In the two other works which I have discussed “Barbie Doll” and The Awakening both the girl and Edna disobey society by committing the ultimate act of suicide to free themselves of the burden of society. In all the works, the main female characters denounced society’s expectations in order to gain personal pleasure. Works Cited Davis, Rebecca Harding. Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 1985. Green, Suzanne D. “The Awakening.” Novels for Students. 56-66. Hughes, Sheila Hassell. “Between the Bodies of Knowledge there is a Great Gulf Fixed: A Liberationist Reading of Class and Gender in Life in the Iron Mills.” 1997. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_ quarterly/v049/49.1hughes.html. November 15,1999. Lawrence, D.H. “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter.” Meyers, Jeffrey. “D.H. Lawrence and Tradition: ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’.” Studies in Short Fiction. Ed. Gayle R. Swanson. Newberry, South Carolina: Newberry College, 1989. 346-351. Piercy, Marge. “Barbie Doll.”
The time of the Industrial Revolution was one of immense change for both men and women. The new advancements of British machinery that sparked the Industrial Revolution transformed the economy and way of life in the United States, specifically New England and neighboring states. The recent developments lead to children and women, most of whom were immigrants, to work in factories to produce textiles and ready-made clothing. The factory owners of Lowell exploited the girls’ safety and time, yet the occupation provides opportunities that were not even imaginable before.
Dublin, Thomas. "Women, work and protest in the early Lowell Mills: `the oppressing hand of avarice would enslave us.'" Labor History 16(1975): 99-116.
Weeks, K. (2011). The Problem with work: Feminism, marxism, antiwork politics and postwork imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
The concept how woman are treated in modern times have changed drastically compared to woman who lived in the conservative period. That period was the time where the perception of individuals in general dealt with countless restraints. The women were the ones who were affected the most because these values had strongly influenced them. Woman behaved in a way how their husband’s wanted because they were living their lives by the controlled ways of the man. The story of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the story of “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin are two stories that show accurately the way how women were treated at that time; exactly Edna and the other women. I want to discuss that the main characters of these two stories; Edna and the other women’s liberty were interdicted by their husbands. Finally, the way how both stories end; Edna’s suicide, and the other women’s insanity; demonstrates their inability to escape from the unhappy reality. None of them found the real strength, to outdo the restriction and effects of society, to attain their independence and freedom that they continuously wanted to achieve.
In the 1800's the construction of cotton mills brought about a new phenomenon in American labor. The owners needed a new source of labor to tend these water powered machines and looked to women. Since these jobs didn't need strength or special skills th...
Many of us complain about the tough hours we work or the amount of chores we have to complete, but think about the truly harsh conditions that young girls and women had to work in the textile industry with very little pay and no accolades. Back in the 18th century, when the Industrial Revolution struck, it made it hard for female mill workers to enjoy being employed. Due to the terrible working conditions, the amount of hours worked, and the low wages were a few of the similarities that the female mill workers in England and Japan shared.
Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
Throughout time women have been written as the lesser sex, weaker, secondary characters. They are portrayed as dumb, stupid, and nothing more than their fading beauty. They are written as if they need to be saved or helped because they cannot help themselves. Women, such as Daisy Buchanan who believes all a woman can be is a “beautiful little fool”, Mrs Mallard who quite died when she lost her freedom from her husband, Eliza Perkins who rights the main character a woman who is a mental health patient who happens to be a woman being locked up by her husband, and then Carlos Andres Gomez who recognizes the sexism problem and wants to change it. Women in The Great Gatsby, “The Story of an Hour,” “The Yellow Wall Paper” and the poem “When” are oppressed because the fundamental concept of equality that America is based on undermines gender equality.
At the end of chapter two in, Steel Town U.S.A., the authors, Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, define the importance of steelmaking in Youngstown, Ohio “as an important element of community life, a source of identity and solidarity, an activity that brought pride and fulfillment to individuals and the community (129).” The author’s proclaim, “… steelwork as almost synonymous with Youngstown,” defining itself by organized labor and steelmaking” (68). Linkon and Russo, convey ideas about hard physical labor, with a glimpse of insight into the steelworkers anguish using words like virtue, pride and a sense of belonging, which for a typical situation would convey positive representations. Though most would think of these words, virtue, pride, and belonging as associations of working-class solidarity, clear identity and value, the author’s instead use these words to allow for the reader to better understand the misery that steelworkers faced. Making the connection between the workers lack of control to that of social conflict in their own community, the authors want the readers to understand both sides, allowing to bridge the gap of struggle by mending Youngstow...
Many women in modern society make life altering decisions on a daily basis. Women today have prestigious and powerful careers unlike in earlier eras. It is more common for women to be full time employees than homemakers. In 1879, when Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, there was great controversy over the out come of the play. Nora’s walking out on her husband and children was appalling to many audiences centuries ago. Divorce was unspoken, and a very uncommon occurrence. As years go by, society’s opinions on family situations change. No longer do women have a “housewife” reputation to live by and there are all types of family situations. After many years of emotional neglect, and overwhelming control, Nora finds herself leaving her family. Today, it could be said that Nora’s decision is very rational and well overdue.
Life and death are two things that we as humans must all face. The road from one to the other, from life to death, is a long and at times, both joyous and painful one. Robert Frost’s poems are a prime example of these times and trials. The poems I chose for this paper highlight them, and with Frost’s allegory, they present a sort of silver lining to the string of dark and dreary words he’s pieced together for these poems. The depressing tone to the poems “Acquainted with the Night”, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowing Evening” could be attributed to the death of many of Frost’s family members, and how despite this he overcame it all, and at the end of his life, was a successful writer. These poems to not go into great explanation of the details of Frost’s life, however, I believe that they are representations of the things path that he’s walked, and how he viewed his actions and death in general.
Many authors are recognized by a reoccurring theme found throughout their works. The author D.H. Lawrence can be classified into this group. He is well known for his reoccurring theme that romantic love is psychologically redeeming. He wrote “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” , a short story that exemplifies this theme quite accurately, in 1922 (Sagar 12). Through excellent use of symbolism in “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”, Lawrence renders his theme of romantic love being psychologically redeeming through the emotional development of the two main characters, Mabel and Dr. Fergusson.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
Olson, Karen. Wives of Steel: Voices of Women from the Sparrows Point Steelmaking Communities. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Print.