I have read five short stories from the anthology 'Out of the Darkness'
- From the five stories I will be discussing the treatment of the women
in three of the stories.
For my prose coursework, I have read five short stories from the
anthology 'Out of the Darkness'. From the five stories I will be
discussing the treatment of the women in three of the stories. The
three stories I have chosen are 'Invisible Boy', 'More Than Just A
Disease' and 'The Darkness Out There'.
In the story 'The Darkness Out There', the old lady, whose name is
'Mrs Rutter', is portrayed by the writer as a woman with a 'wonky leg'
and a 'bad back' and also a woman that is getting 'home help'; this
shows that she is a woman that is unable to do much practical work.
This is a stereotype of an old person as most old people have some
sort of problem with their body and a bad back is typical problem. Mrs
Rutter getting home help is another stereotype because this also shows
that she is unable to cope on her own and needs assistance with doing
household chores.
Mrs Rutter is shown as a lonely person because in the story the girl
who is going to help her with the chores says to herself ' Mrs Rutter
will be ever so pleased to meet me'. This is a stereotype in the form
that the girl is assuming that most old people are lonely and live by
themselves. Mrs Rutter is described as being a sweet woman and having
chin upon chin also she is shown to like flowers, dresses and talking
to other females; this is the most obvious stereotype in the story
against women and also old people who like to talk.
When we first meet Mrs Rutter she greets the two children 'Kerry' and
'Sandra' and offers them tea, but she seems to like Sandra more
because she talks to Sandra a lot more about dresses, boyfriends and
flowers, but when she speaks Kerry she ask's him if he is still at
school and he says he will be leaving soon to join a garage and she
replies, 'that's good steady money if you'd haven't got anything got
any thing special in mind'. This is not a great welcoming message to
say to a person that has come to help you with chores. 'Pat' the woman
who runs the good neighbours club call's Mrs Rutter an 'old dear' and
a 'poppet', it is unlike an old dear to greet someone in that fashion.
When Mrs Rutter told her dark story of her past about leaving a young
Madam Lockton is a rich woman, so using money to her advantage, she doesn’t have to do regular housework like wives of the less fortunate would have to have done. I felt convinced of this idea because in several parts of the book she orders her maids
The short stories, “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Lieber, “Bits and Pieces,” by Lisa Tuttle, “While She Was Out” by Edward Bryant, “Cold Turkey” by Carole Nelson Douglas, and “Lightning Rod” by Melanie Tem Historically, in literature, women are stereotypically placed in one of two roles, the doting wife and beloved mother, or the more outwardly psychotic, witch-like, temptress. As the feminist approach to the criticism of literature has blossomed over time, the need for empowered female characters has surfaced. To rectify the absence of this character, “wild women literature” has made many advances in the defiance of gender role stereotypes and gender norms. The women in the collection of wild women short stories are difficult to define because of society’s pre-conceived notions of how women should and do behave. The term “wild women” conveys a slightly negative and sometimes misinterpreted connotation of a woman’s behavior; however, in this collection of stories, the female characters are generally vindicated because of the motivation behind their actions. The motivation can be linked to the popular cultural phenomenon of women taking charge of their lives, making decisions for themselves, being independent, rising above their oppressors (most commonly the close men in their lives), and becoming empowered. Vigilante actions by the wild women in these stories are not entirely representative of madness, but also re...
moving in, but even after he will be moving into a new house and away
stereotype because we need to figure someone out quickly or we find ourselves lazy. We
...borhood she will not return until she thinks about the other women like Sally, who can not leave the neighborhood and she chooses to eventually go back to help them.
This article talks about the growing movement of hiring maids for household work. This article starts off as being about gender inequality, but then turns into an issue of class and moral standards. The author explains her own experiences of house cleaning. She also describes how “wealthier class’s children are being raised with the attitude”. (Barbara Ehrenreich) That the people that clean up after them are “lower” than everyone else. Additionally she talks about how the hiring of house hold workers will increase and eventually move on to the middle class homes.
Jane is told that she must go to the Red Room she says 'O Aunt! Have
Dee tries to convince her mother that Maggie should not be given the quilts because Maggie would "probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use" ( Walker 388) and wear them out. Momma comes back with a hope that Maggie does use them since the quilts have been stored in t...
Mrs Kay firstly asks Carol why she does not and go and look round the
son, because she decided to go into Crooks’ room. But all of a sudden she becomes furious and exclaims, “Listen,
She goes down to get supplies for the Coffeehouse, hopefully seeing her childhood crush, Nathaniel. Matilda’s mother doesn’t approve of Nathaniel because she believes that he is going nowhere in life and won’t make enough money to support a family. Returning to the Coffeehouse, Matilda’s mother gets an invitation from the Ogilives, wanting them to join her for tea. Matilda can either stay home and do chores the whole day or go with her mother for tea. Matilda’s mother wants Matilda to go so she can set Matilda up with Mrs. Ogilives’ son, Robert. It turns out, that Robert had been away for school, and so it was just Mrs. Ogilives and her two daughters who, are rude to Matilda and prevent her from eating the food that had been set out for them all. During tea, Mrs. Ogilives brings up how one of her daughters, Collette, are engaged to the very wealthy man. With the subject coming up, Collette gets over heated and passes out, so Matilda and her mother leave. Rumor said that she had fallen ill, and many other people had mysteriously fallen ill with what they named as Yellow
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‘You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house.’
work and is about to get married. The only work she has done is when
While the girl loved the work outside she hated to do the ‘woman’s work’ inside. She disliked her mother for making her do it, and believed that her mother only made her do it be...