The Social Constraints of Marriage on Women.
Kimberly Backes Professor Fesmire Humanities 107W 9 February 2004 The Social Constraints of Marriage on Women Virginia Woolf views marriage as very stifling to the identity of women. She feels the institution of marriage creates a mindset in women to be self sacrificing, passive, and to use their talents to excel in domestic tasks. Virginia Woolf calls this mindset the angel in the house. Virginia Woolf kills her own angel and is able to achieve success as a female writer but she knows this is not true for most women in a male-dominated society. Woolf feels women are endowed with all kinds of potential, some of which will never be expressed due to the social restrictions placed on women. People should be valued for their potential, be it realized or not, in addition to being valued for work they have actually performed. Woolf expresses the struggle between the killing the angel and embracing the angel through the character of Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway while Michael Cunningham does this through Laura Brown in The Hours. These women live decades apart but still are in conflict. Clarissa Dalloway embraces the angel in her house since it allows for her to avoid reaching her full potential. She is well aware of her role as a wife and instead of trying to overcome the restrictions, she reinforces them. Clarissa uses the angel as an escape from living a full
A study of 'Charlotte O'Neil's Song' and 'Presents from my aunts in Pakistan'.
A study of 'Charlotte O'Neil's Song' and 'Presents from my aunts in Pakistan' The poem 'Charlotte O'Neil's song' was written by Fiona Farrell in the 1980's. Fiona Farrell originates from New Zealand. This poem comes from a group of poems called passengers, passengers consists of three poems and a song. These poems were set in 1871 and were inspired by 19th Century ship records. Charlotte O'Neil is a real person, she's 17 years old and she travelled on the 'Isabella Hercus' in 1871 from Britain. Farrell stereotyped charlotte's situation on what she knew about lower class women in the late 19th Century. Charlotte left Britain for New Zealand in search of a job to escape from servitude, to find a better life. The poem tells us about Charlotte's strenuous lifestyle and the manner in which her mistress treats her. The poem itself consists of five stanzas; each verse has five or more lines accept for the third. The theme of the poem is of Charlotte O'Neil's bitterness and hatred towards her mistress. She is addressing her opinion of her wretched lifestyle to her mistress. Judging by her tone, she has plenty of courage and knows how to answer up for herself, she might even be described as cheeky. The poem begins with the line "You rang your bell and I answered." From this line you immediately get the impression that Charlotte is being treated like a pet animal in the sense her
Matthew weeks a local boy from Bodmin was hung yesterday for the murder of Charlotte Dymond.
Matthew weeks a local boy from Bodmin was hung yesterday for the murder of Charlotte Dymond. Matthew was a crippled farm hand that worked with Charlotte on the Bodmin farm. Charlotte was a well-known girl and had many friends and family that loved and cared for her. The two were lovers for a short period of time prior to the murder. It was known that Matthew seemed to be the jealous type when Charlotte was to talk to another man. Charlotte was a well-liked girl and she was very outgoing, so being friendly with people was one of her niceties. Matthew it seemed was a quiet boy around people, although Charlotte knew him as a loud and talkative boy. The night of the murder was a very gloomy night the locals explained. There was mist and fog on the moorlands and it seemed to be very cold. The couple spent there last night together walking through the moorlands. It was said that Matthew and Charlotte walked into the mist just after Charlotte was paid on Lady Day. They spent three hours together that night but ended in a terrible way. Matthew was to return alone that night and he seemed to react very strange, work mates said. He seemed all quiet and he had a look of guilt and despair on his face. The workers were worried about Charlotte being late home and so they called the police and reported her missing. As soon as the police came to the farm, they took Matthew in for questions.
Daniel Defoe.
Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe was a member of the lower middle class, a Dissenting Protestant, and a staunch political activist, all of which contributed to a lifelong sense of alienation and embattlement. He suffered his share of ups and downs, falling into severe financial and legal trouble in mid-life. Having been twice imprisoned himself, Defoe had a first-hand knowledge of the social underworld he describes in Moll Flanders. Because of his class status and religious affiliation, Defoe was in some respects an outsider among the literary figures of his generation. He was educated, but in a practical vein; he did not receive the classical education that informed the careers of Pope and Dryden, for example. Moll Flanders was not a novel that enjoyed great success at the time of its publication; the coarseness of its subject matter alienated many potential readers. It was for later centuries to appreciate the nature of his achievement in this book. Though some 19th- and 20th-century critics have belittled Defoe's technical achievements, he currently enjoys a strong literary reputation and is counted by many contemporary scholars as one of the key figures in the early development of the novel. The full title of Moll Flanders gives an apt summary of the plot: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd
Poetry appreciation of 'Tulips' by Silvia Plath.
SHABNAM ABUBAKER ENGLIGH LITERATURE 2001 POETRY APPRECIATION OF 'TULIPS' BY SILVIA PLATH. The poem 'Tulips' was written by Silvia Plath. When looking at the title a lot of thoughts come into my head. At first I thought how nice, because it is a flower and flowers are pretty. I looked at it again and a lot of people resemble tulips with death. It is said that tulips are a flower of death and they are put on graves. The poem is divided into eight parts each with about nine lines. Nine is superstitiously known as the death number. Its form is rather regular with broken lines here and there to emphasize tensions. The opening line of the poem is a personification, as it says, "The tulips are too excitable." This suggests that they have human features and are very exciting. Automatically we get a sense of coldness because Plath describes it to be "winter" and "everything is white." This gives us the impression that it is not a very happy poem. Also we think of a hospital because in hospitals everything is normally white both physically and mentally. There is a repetition of the 'igh' sound; this gives the effect of everything being quiet and cold. She is "learning peacefulness", she could be getting peace from the drugs they have been wadding her with or she could be learning peace from lying there for so long. This verse is broken and she goes on to
In what ways can Charlotte O’Neil’s Song be described as a protest song?
In what ways can Charlotte O'Neil's Song be described as a protest song? In order to fully answer this question I firstly looked up the meanings of the words 'protest' and 'song'. The Oxford Concise English Dictionary defines 'protest' as "as statement of dissent or disapproval" and song as either "as short poem in rhymed stanzas" or "as short poem or other sets of words set to music or meant to be sung". Charlotte O'Neil's Song is indeed a poem comprising of four stanzas, each with an element of rhyme. The choice of words alone also makes it clear that the song is a "statement of dissent". In the poem we learn a lot about the typical chores Charlotte was expected to do in a days work, fictitious or otherwise. The tasks that the poet has chosen to use are dirty and unpleasant jobs, "I emptied your chamber pot", possibly to highlight the subservient position she has been put in. Providing us with this background knowledge has effectively made Farrel's job of developing the argument later in the poem a lot easier, as she has already outlined the situation. We learn a lot about the attitudes of Charlotte's employers. The poet displays them in a very negative light. A key example is "I emptied your chamber pot". I think that any reader of the poem would find it difficult to respect a person who feels they are in such a superior position that they do not need to do very basic
The first poem I am going to look at is Charlotte O'Neil's song.
Melissa Gibbs / English coursework. Charlotte O'Neil's Song. The first poem I am going to look at is Charlotte O'Neil's song. Charlotte O'Neil is servant who looks on her life as gruelling and dull. Her heart sets on an exciting new life in New Zealand were she hoped to live her life as "luxurious" as her mistress. We learn about Charlottes O'Neil's lifestyle and how it differs from her mistress's and with that we can answer why she wrote this poem. In the poem it clarifies that Charlotte O'Neil was bored with her work and felt she could do more from her independents and individuality. Her harsh tone in lines 1-5 suggests she's had enough of her slavery, "and I washed your plate and I scrubbed till my hands were raw." Charlotte is obviously a hard working girl and dislikes her life being owed to her masters, therefore she wants to escape and discover life. Charlotte writes the poem about the past in lines 1-14, she sounds angry, how her mistress treated her, "You lay on a silken pillow. I lay on a attic cot". The tone changes again in lines 13-14, Charlotte comes to feel hurt, "The rich man earns his castle, you said. The poor deserve the gate." This is supposed to show that God made people to live in different social classes - some to serve and some to be served. This would
Post 21st Century Autobiography 'Ugly' - Costance Briscoe
Unit 1-post21st century Autobiography This is a marked coursework task out of twenty. We have read long extracts from Constance Briscoe's 2006 autobiography "ugly". We have seen news night interview and read a daily mail interview with her mother. Repeatedly kicked, punched, terrorized and yet survived all that to become England's first black barrister1 Constant Briscoe reveals her shocking past in her autobiography, UGLY. Now Constance Briscoe, who lives with her partner, Anthony Arlige who is a distinguished lawyer and 2 children. Martin and Francesca, and has a great occupation of a barrister for the last ten years, has decided to tell the truth about her disturbing past after astonishing years of shielding it! In the shocking, yet inspired book she describes how she was tortured day after day for wetting the bed but couldn't do anything about it. The book is mainly based on the pain that she went trough in her childhood and how day after day of torture from her mother and her mother's partner led her to attempt suicide. She did this by drinking bleach but unfortunately for her she didn't die. The prologue starts of with her wanting to sign herself up for care but the social worker turning her back. She also describes how her mother's torture made her stress levels extremely high as her hair started falling out and her bed wetting didn't stop even though her doctor
Moll Flanders essay - marriage and wealth, a moral issue.
MOLL FLANDERS ESSAY: MARRIAGE & WEALTH: A MORAL ISSUE Moll describes the dark fate of children of criminals. Without any system to protect them, they are thrown into the world with no training in any subject and no goal other than starvation or the same life of crime that ended so badly for their parents. Moll's mother had been sentenced to death for having stolen three pieces of cloth. Moll herself was very lucky to be taken in: the parish, the area served by one church, were under no obligation to take care of penniless children who were not born there, or had no other particular claim to charity: "I was not a parish charge upon this or that part of the town by law." Indeed the parish officers tried to find the gypsies in order to send Moll back to them, even though they were unrelated to her and she did not like them. Legally, they could have sent her out to starve: she was saved only by their compassion. Once Moll was taken in, her troubles had not end. An eight-year old child could be made to work all day as a powerless "drudge to some cook maid," learning no useful skills and earning no more than an almost suitable income. Sewing and spinning was not much better: even working all the time, a woman could not earn a living. Moll's pay, "three pence when I spin, and four pence when I work plain work," would not even pay for her food, much less room or clothing. When her
A Woman's Best Friends.
A Woman's Best Friends Lightning has done the impossible; it has struck Gretel Erlich for the second time. She escaped the first incident relatively harm free when it traveled up through her horse's legs, and out of her body, but she isn't so lucky now. At least she can rely on prompt and efficient medical service, right? Wrong. It turns out that everybody fails her, including the ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses, and even her newly estranged husband. In fact, only her two dogs will remain by her side in the end. The first part of this essay does not have any sense of time to it. On the contrary, it seems to be describing how Ms. Erlich is meandering through a sea of timelessness. She is neither here nor there, but slowly she begins trickling back into reality. She says, "There is a terrible feeling of oppression with no oppressor." She is trying to figure out what is going on; why she has a strange feeling that there is something wrong, but she has no idea. She is almost sure that she is dying. She is relieved that her dogs are coming with her when she says, "My two beloved dogs appear. They flank me like tiny rockets, their fur pressed against my ribs. A leather harness holds us all together. The dogs climb toward light, pulling me upward at a slant from the sea." Even though in reality it is dark and stormy around her, she is dreaming that she is with