Mansfield, projecting her middle-class upbringing, delineates the story of a privileged family receiving a doll house, its arrival tainted somewhat by the chemical odour it emits and the repetition of “smell of paint” foreshadowing its toxicity and the alienation it shall cause. The children show the doll house to all but the Kelveys, who are exile because of their lowly socio-economic status. Their desolation is elucidated through the aggregation of the various occupations of the townspeople, allowing the author to juxtapose the “judge’s children” to the “store-keeper’s children”, thereby establishing their position at the foot of the social ladder. While such exclusion is evident in “Feliks Skrzynecki” as the poet’s father is mocked by a clerk, the basis of the exclusion varies. While Skrzynecki is because of his cultural background, the Kelveys’ isolation stems from their financial and subsequent social shortcomings. Ultimately, the Kelveys embrace their position of being perennial outsiders and their acceptance of their identity intensifies the bond between them, as is depicted through the hyperbole, “went through life holding each other”. The Doll’s House thus opens our eyes to the difficulty of belonging when at a severe economic disadvantage, an issue mirrored in the…
Sylvia’s initiation in the short story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, is striking because Miss Moore gives the opportunity to the children to evaluate the difference between the fifth avenue and their poor neighborhood. However, one of the story’s main themes is that innocence is a handicap and the political and moral innocence that are represented from the beginning to the end of the story brings the main character to many reflections. This idea is revealed as Sylvia’s ignorance towards the different social classes, Sylvia’s questions on the purpose of wealth and the hard realization of the true facts of inequality. Due to the children’s lack of political and moral knowledge,…
Mansfield’s work in “Miss Brill”, is mainly about a lonely school teacher that creates a false reality for herself. Miss Brill finds herself at the Public Gardens every Sunday afternoon in her certain spot to eavesdrop into others conversations. Miss Brill over hears a young couple ridicule her beloved coat and cruel jokes. Her fantasy is now over, and feels unwanted. The shy old lady finally realizes the ugly truth.…
Author Henrik Ibsen was a very brave man during his time period. He dared to be different and wrote about what people did not want to or desired to discuss because it was not the cultural norm. He mainly focused on women’s rights and their roles due to his startling upbringing and wanted the world to know that, in reality, everything was not always hunky-dory, especially when it came to women. This led to and fueled him to write in the Realism format which discussed real life issues. In his work, A Doll’s House, Ibsen metaphorically spoke of one of the main characters, Nora, as he used symbolism to expose the reality of women’s roles, along with a possible outcome of how women would end up if they challenged society’s view of them.…
Besides their similarities, Miss Hancock and Charlottes mother are so different that they contrast each other. Miss Hancock is unmarried woman who encourages Charlotte to be expressive. On the other hand, Charlotte’s Mother doesn’t support or care much about Charlotte’s enthusiasm for the subject. As a child, playing with toys wasn’t allowed because it made a mess “A toy ceased to be a toy once it left the toy cupboard” (p 65). Miss Hancock loves teaching children, so if she were Charlotte’s mother, she would tell her to make as much of a mess as she wants. Miss Hancock and Charlotte’s mother are an example of character foil.…
A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, portrays a young married woman, Nora, who plays a dramatic role of deception and self-indulgence. The author creates a good understanding of a woman’s role by assuming Nora is an average housewife who does not work; her only job is to maintain the house and raise the children like a stereotypical woman that cannot work or help society. In reality, she is not an average housewife in that she has a hired maid who deals with the house and children. Although Ibsen focuses on these “housewife” attributes, Nora’s character is ambitious, naive, and somewhat cunning. She hides a dark secret from her husband that not only includes borrowing money, but also forgery. Nora’s choices were irrational; she handled the situations very poorly in this play by keeping everything a secret. The way that women were viewed in this time period created a barrier that she could not overcome. The decisions that had the potential to be good were otherwise molded into appalling ones. Women should have just as many rights as men and should not be discriminated by gender; but they should also accept consequences in the same way without a lesser or harsher punishment.…
A marriage is supposed to have a partnership. In the “Doll’s House’ by Henrik Ibsen Torvald…
Manfield's Ms. Brill and Joyce's Eveline: A Comparison of Two Protagonists The two female characters in Manfield's and Joyce's stories have different personalities. Ms Brill could be said to have a personality disorder and exhibited distortions in the way she interpreted and thought about herself. On the other hand, Eveline was genuinely aware of the reality of her world but she almost chose a fantasy world where she would be a perfect wife to a perfect husband in a perfect world called Buenos Aires. Almost a century ago, Katherine Mansfield wrote about Ms. Brill and her escape from reality every Sunday that she indulged herself in an interesting world that a public garden provided.…
Abstract: Fiction interpretation contributes to a more sufficient understanding and profound appreciation of literary works for readers. Miss Brill, a short story written by Katherine Mansfield, describes an afternoon in the life of a middle-aged spinster who visits the public park on a weekly basis, leading to her reassessment of her view of the world and the secular reality. Though short in form, it is really worth detailed interpretation and appreciation. This paper will mainly deal with the themes it conveys.…
The late 19th century was an important time in the early American society. Little Women provides close insight of the changing position of girls and women during the times of the great Civil War. Little Women shows the reader countless dimensions of the children’s daily lives, including their dating rituals, chores and schooling. The book focuses on a family of the middle-class New England that is having hard financial times and they prove how sticking together as a family keeps everyone close. Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Little Women uses life experiences of sisters, Beth, Jo, Meg and Amy and there maturity during girlhood to represent the tone of bittersweet, care, and innocence of hardships of this time in era.…
Does the story challenge or defend the status of class structure in the early nineteenth century British society and how?…
1. The Christmas tree in the beginning of Act 2 is now stripped of ornaments, burned down candle stubs on ragged branches. The destruction and run down of the tree is like the way the characters lives are going. All of the characters have something chaotic going on their lives and they all are slowly becoming a wreck.…
Mothers are known to be the true base of a family, and without one families tend to fall apart. They put their children and spouses before them all the time, and more often than not their self responsibility revolves around taking care of their family. This has been the case since the dawn of time and has remained prevalent throughout the world. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the theme of self responsibility is exploited through the use of Situational Irony. Nora appears to be the typical selfless mother at the beginning of the play, but through situational Irony Nora leaves as a selfish, cruel, and cold hearted woman at the end of the play.…
‘Little Women’ is a coming of age story set in 19th century New England. The main characters of the book are the March sisters, Meg, Josephine (Jo), Beth and Amy. They each face their individual struggles and moral challenges as they enter into adulthood. The book explores the sister’s relationship with each other their mother (Marmee), the boy next door Laurie and other friends and acquaintances. The girls grow to become responsible young women though they were not wealthy and lived in financially difficult times. They are a close family despite their tragedies and disagreements. During this time they also have their first experiences with love and the opposite sex as Laurie, the boy next door becomes an integral part of their lives. It is a story of resilience, romance, family and friendship.…
In Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party,” the third reasons that show the rich Sheridans think they are better than the poor Scotts is because where the Scotts live it is not as clean as the place where the Sheridans live. However, the Sheridans forbid their children to play with the Scott’s children when they were small. Mansfield in her work “The Garden Party,” Mrs. Sheridan claims the Scotts speak repulsive language and she protected and forbidden her children to play with the Scotts’ children because she was afraid they might catch something.…