White Oleander

1050 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Parent child relationships in literature poetry

White Oleander, a dramatic fiction by Janet Fitch, was published by Little, Brown and Company in Boston. The story is about a mother and daughter, Ingred and Astrid have a very unusual relationship. Ingred loves her daughter but never asks her what she thinks so therefore doesn't know her daughter too well. Such as she does not know of her daughter's yearning for a father. Ingred makes it very clear that she will not allow herself to get close to a man. She is a very brilliant, beautiful poet, who is adored by a man named Barry Kolker. He goes to all of her readings, and asks her out each time. One of the times Barry invites her to go to the Gamelan, an orchestra. Loving the Gamelan, she accepts. Her and Astrid join Barry, and they begin talking more. They start going out more, but each time she makes and stands by regulations, such as he will invite her to eat after an event where they had not planned on eating and she will refuse, because she doesn't like to get attached to men, and doesn't want to spend anymore time than she had already allotted. All of a sudden, her rules start diminishing. One time, there was a knock at her door, and it was Barry. She thought to herself, 'how dare he just come without an invitation?'. When she opened the door (a knife in her hand), he had a bottle of wine, and bag of something that smelled good. To Astrid's surprise she did something least expected. She invited him in. One night Barry said he would be over to her house at 9 and nev...

Show More
Related

  • Comparing The Yellow Wallpaper And Desiree's Baby By Kate Chopin

    94 Words  | 1 Pages

    Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were both highly influential realist and naturalist writers. Both authors wrote many pieces of literature which are focused around feminist themes and ideas of life and death. Two of these pieces are “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which is written by Gilman, and “Desiree’s Baby”, which is written by Chopin. Many factors have influenced these writers, such as stressors of their time periods, life experiences, and personal beliefs. Both of these short stories exhibit feminism due to life experiences as well as different viewpoints on death based on personal beliefs.

    Read More

  • Madness in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-Tale Heart

    1673 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Norton Introduction To Literature. Eds. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter. 7th Ed. New York, Norton, 1998. 2: 630-642.

    Read More

  • Granny Weatherall and Emily Grierson: Comparisons and Contrasts

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter features an elderly woman named Ellen Weatherall who faces her last moments alive recounting her memories and regrets. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner introduces the reader to Emily Grierson, a gothic southern belle who lacks charm and dies somewhat alone. Both Ellen Weatherall and Emily Grierson share traits, but they also contrast from one another throughout their stories. Each author's stream of consciousness writing style invites the reader straight into the different minds of Weatherall and Grierson. Comparing and Contrasting the two women shows their unqiue traits and eccentric ways.

    Read More

  • Heritage Linda Hogan Summary

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    After reading and analyzing this poem, I have observed varying tones throughout the piece. The poem begins by describing what characteristics she has obtained from her mother’s side. She writes, “she left the large white breasts that weigh down/ my body” and “my whiteness a shame.” The tone of these two phrases could be described as ashamed and disappointed. The poem’s tone immediately changes in the second stanza. The author begins talking about her father’s side and how proud she is to learn of her Chickasaw heritage. The poem reads, “From my father I take his brown eyes”, “He was the man/ who sang old chants to me”, and “I learned to kill a snake/ when you’re begging for rain.” When telling about her father’s side, the author’s tone is more compassionate and interested. When the author talks about her grandmother, she uses more detail; however, her tone is much different. I concluded that the grandma was not too fond of the fact that she was half white. It seemed as if she cared a great deal about what her grandmother thought of her. Hogan seemed ashamed of her white background, but was proud of the fact that she had a Chickasaw heritage. The author goes on to conclude the poem with the sentence, “From my family I have learned the secrets/ of never having a home.” The author switched to a contradicting and curious tone, leaving the reader wondering what she meant. Tone is important because it helps connect the reader to the story and allows them to feel what the character or author is

    Read More

  • White Lies Natasha Tretheway Analysis

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the poem “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway the narrator opens the poem with vivid imagery about a bi-racial little girl who is trying to find her true identity between herself and others around her. She tells little lies about being fully white because she feels ashamed and embarrassed of her race and class and is a having a hard time accepting reality. The poem dramatizes the conflict between fitting in and reality. The narrator illustrates this by using a lot imagery, correlations and connotation to display a picture of lies. The narrator’s syntax, tone, irony and figurative language help to organize her conflict and address her mother’s disapproval.

    Read More

  • Comparing William Faulkner's Short Stories, A Rose for Emily and Dry September

    1905 Words  | 4 Pages

    ---. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 5th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

    Read More

  • Whitetailed deer

    1935 Words  | 4 Pages

    Whitetail deer are said to be the most commonly hunted animal in North America. Throughout history, people that have lived in America have always wanted this animal for its meat and skin. With the large increase of hunters, our government has made rules and regulations to maintain the population of the famed whitetail deer.

    Read More

  • Wild Plums

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    In today’s society people are judged primarily on their looks and the amount of money that they have. As we take a look into the short story, “Wild Plums”, one can agree that the primary purpose of this short story is to illustrate how people believe they are inferior to others because of the way they look or act. The main family in the story thinks they are too good to go pick wild plums with the slumps and they think they are too good to be around them.

    Read More

  • Welty's Characterization in A Curtain of Green

    2559 Words  | 6 Pages

    Myth, symbol, and allusion are not an uncommon characteristic in Eudora Welty's works. By using characters such as Odysseus and leaving hints of symbolism in works such as The Optimist's Daughter Welty places many questions in the minds of her readers. After a reader has pondered these questions a categorization of the story takes place in the readers mind. Although different readers have different interpretations of literature one collection of Welty's short stories can be classified into two categories. Katherine Anne Porter's introduction to Eudora Welty's A Curtain of Green explains the two categories:

    Read More

  • William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily : Her Father is to Blame

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily tells a story of a young woman who is violated by her father’s strict mentality. After being the only man in her life Emily’s father dies and she finds it hard to let go. Like her father Emily possesses a stubborn outlook towards life, and she refused to change. While having this attitude about life Emily practically secluded herself from society for the remainder of her life. She was alone for the very first time and her reaction to this situation was solitude.

    Read More

  • Comparison: A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner & The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” are two short stories that incorporate multiple similarities and differences. Both stories’ main characters are females who are isolated from the world by male figures and are eventually driven to insanity. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the unidentified narrator moves to a secluded area with her husband and sister-in-law in hopes to overcome her illness. In “A Rose for Emily,” Emily’s father keeps Emily sheltered from the world and when he dies, she is left with nothing. Both stories have many similarities and differences pertaining to the setting, characterization, symbolism, and their isolation from the world by dominant male figures, which leads them to insanity.

    Read More

  • Analyzing The Electra Complex In Faulkner's A Rose For Emily

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    "A Rose for Emily" wrote in the early 1900's tracts the life of a girl oppressed by her father.. Her father along with other towns people put her on a pedestal, and protected her like she was something special. Emily's father was the most influential person in her life and failed to give her the freedom needed to experience the real world. Emily was shaped by her father at a young age to need attention and love at all costs.

    Read More

  • A Rose For Emily Short Story

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Faulkner’s short story, “A Rose for Emily”, is an ominous story of a young women marred by her father that ended up with her having a fear that she would forever be alone. Emily’s father found no male was good enough for his daughter and kept her single well into her 30’s. At that time it was very unusual for a woman to be single in her 30’s. The setting of the story is in the south in the 1930’s. Her father dies leaving her with a house, a servant, and a lonely heart. When her father dies C...

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing The Giant Wistaria and Yellow Wallpaper

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Giant Wistaria" was first published in June 1891 in The New England Magazine, the same journal that would publish "The Yellow Wallpaper" a year later in 1892. These were difficult years in Gilman's life: she had separated from her first husband, artist Charles Walter Stetson, and was attempting, unsuccessfully, to resolve her contradictory desires, on one hand, to be a good wife and mother in conventional terms, and on the other, to be autonomous and seriously dedicated to her work. In 1891-1892, Gilman (still using the name Stetson) was enjoying her first literary successes, confirming her decision to work politically for women's rights, and moving toward the painful decision to give up custody of her daughter, who, beginning in May 1894, would be raised by Stetson's second wife--whom Gilman considered a "co-mother."

    Read More

  • D.H. Lawrence's Odour of Chrysanthemums

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Odour of Chrysanthemums,” by D. H. Lawrence, tells a story of a woman named Elizabeth Bates, who is married to a man that works in the mines. The couple has two children, and they are expecting their third child. There is a lot trouble between them. The Bates family lives in poverty. The house where they live has no electricity and it needs to be lit up with torches. One night Mrs. Bates waits for her husband to come back home from work to serve dinner, but he never shows up. She thinks he may be drinking with his friends, and that maybe his friends are going to bring him back home drunk as usual. Time passes and Mrs. Bates does not hear from him. Later that night her mother in law arrives crying, then she begins suspect that something bad happens and her husband is dead. The central idea of liberation is expressed as the writer uses three elements of fiction to tell the story.

    Read More

More about White Oleander

Open Document