In the novella Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, the author Stephen Crane portrays hypocrisy throughout the story. The protagonist in the book is a young woman, Maggie Johnson, who has many responsibilities and is forced to make many difficult decisions. The story takes place in an urban city in the slums of New York, the Bowery. During the 1890s many people lived with hardships financially, emotionally and economically. Crane is a naturalist author; therefore, he uses this book to show the lifestyle of a common person during this time period by showing hypocrisy through different characters. He shows both sides of hypocrisy, the hypocrite and the person affected by the hypocrite. Crane is able to portray moral hypocrisy in the character Jimmie Johnson, and how his actions affect other people.…
St. Lucy's Home for Girls is about pack of girls that were raised by wolves, who are forced to go to a camp by their parents to ultimately fit society's standards and become a human. The camp takes place in a forest and later shifts to the school. The narrator of the story is Claudette. She talks in first person and is telling everything that’s going on through her mind. The main conflict for the girls was trying to figure out a way to adapt to the human lifestyle. Another conflict was when everyone was trying to figure out how to do the Sausalito, but no one but Jeanette knew and it took a while for the rest of the girls to learn how to do it. At the end Claudette goes to see her family, and even though she knows that she doesn't really fit…
Within Carter’s short stories, she may present a sinister distortion of family relationships by subverting ‘typical’ family roles, perhaps in a way that has a harmful or negative outcome for particular family members. She could appear to do this through the presentation of the parent and child relationships in The Snow Child, or the husband and wife relationship in The Bloody Chamber. The Gothic element of the stories is emphasised through the ‘sinister’ aspect of these distortions, as the relationships Carter presents can be somewhat disturbing. However, in some of her stories it appears that family relationships are not distorted, such as the mother and daughter relationship in The Bloody Chamber or the father and daughter relationship in The Courtship of Mr Lyon.…
The pieces I have chosen to focus on are “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” and Clockwork Angel. “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” was written by Stephen Crane and published in 1893 under the pseudonym, Johnston Smith. Later, when Crane obtained success through The Red Badge of Courage, he was able to publish a revised version of the story under his own name in 1896 (sparks). With “Maggie”, Crane attempted to show American life in New York as he had experienced it personally. The piece tells the story of Maggie Johnson who falls for her brother’s friend. When she is abandoned by him at the urging of a more experienced woman, she tries to return home only to be cast out onto the street. She dies sometime later wandering the streets as a prostitute. It is a story that shows how Maggie's home life set her up to not only fall for the wrong guy, but fall into a life of prostitution that would ultimately lead to her death. She was a kind and gentle girl without the skills to survive in the world she was born into.…
The story opens with the arrival of the German prisoners of war at the train station. From the first chapters we find out about the daily routine of Patty and her family. The reader learns important information about the setting and the characters which explains their behaviour throughout the novel. We learn of the lack of warmth and love from Patty’s parents and also of the contrasting loving relationships with Ruth, her nanny, and her grandparents. In addition, we see evidence of the father’s brutality when he beats her savagely because she breaks a window. Her isolation, feelings of failure and of not being good enough for her parents are also shown. These chapters also highlight the racism, discrimination and prejudices in the community which make people feel like outcasts. The people in the community are also quite frightened by what the German prisoners might do to them.…
Class politics are introduced to the story when the Phonies arrive in Stella Street. The Phonies are disliked as soon as they arrive in Stella Street because of the renovations they make on Old Aunt Lillie’s house and the children of Stella Street make fun of the fact that the Phonies refurnish the house (p.13). Henni encourages the reader to make fun of the high class Phonies about the…
The Street, by Ann Petry, is a novel which heavily questions value of institutions in 1940’s Harlem, with some characters such as Lutie Johnson believing these fundamental organizations within America to be like a stone mansion, while time and time again Petry shows other characters in higher positions of power who have not put stock in those same institutions, recognizing them to be the house of cards that they are. Three prominent institutions within the novel deserve deep examination—that of marriage, law enforcement, and the State (with regards to children’s services). It is apparent in the novel that Petry believes ideas and groups put in place to assist members of society often fail at their function (particularly if said member is a…
The Lords and the Mill Girls is a chapter in the Portrait of America book that details how democratic ideals do not mix well with the profit motive. One such example of this was the Lowell Mill in Massachusetts; originally it was a famous international attraction, a model of enlightened industrial management. Unfortunately, Lowell mill changed. It gradually became like the everyday grim and crowded mill town, another "squalid slum."…
In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, The author uses characterization of Jeanette to show how she saw the world differently from her siblings. Jeanette and her family didn’t have a lot of money. Her and her siblings were left to fend for themselves, even the most basic needs such as food and shelter. Jeanette tells her story in a straightforward fashion that is not touched with anger or self- pity. As the characters get older in the book Jeanette takes it upon herself to become successful and go to college while Maurice, her younger sibling, and her mother still blame the world for their problems and later on ask Jeanette for money.…
In the autobiographical novel The Glass Castle by Jennette Walls, Jennette is a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional family full of hard circumstances and extreme poverty. Yet her experiences are still very exciting; having many adventures. Her father is an alcoholic, but when sober is expressive and brilliant, teaching Jennette and her two siblings Brian and Lori about the wonders of life. Jennette changes throughout her struggles from being a wondering naïve child, to becoming bitter towards her parents for the lifestyle they have put her in to finally developing into a resilient and independent young lady finally accepting her parents for who they are.…
For example when Jeannette was trying to own up to her sister's promise she couldn’t. She wanted to so bad but to other people that had read that quote that's motivation that the author was trying to tell us. Why this illustrates with other people till today is that there's examples out in the real world with poverty and also have their own different type of struggles just as Jeannette’s. On the page 255 Jeannette presents again about being homelessness from the parents view making the entire situation that they’re in a great wild adventure. The parents disguise the truth to the kids making their lives look like a breeze in the wind and refuse to even tell the truth. The parents like being poor they say to Jeannette Walls and the other children because having money is being spoiled and giving your children too much attention is bad as well. The parents almost make it sound that being homeless good and being poor is a good thing. That is why when Jeannette and the other kids try offering money to help their parents they refuse. This describes a deep introduction to…
In the short story, “The Last Day,” author Maggie Wipf conveys the theme of doing the right thing, even if it is hard to do. In the story, the main character, Eric, gets promoted to a higher-ranking job. He gets to solve top secret cases. However, things start to get weird when he and his team solve a murder mystery. He finds clues along the way that eventually lead him to the answer. As things heat up, family becomes to get involved and Eric worries about what will happen. In the end, Eric finds the real truth hiding behind this case and if pressured to make a hard decision. After doing the right thing, his whole life…
Bailey’s Cafe is a collection of deeply moving personal stories from (mainly) women deeply scared by life. Author Gloria Naylor reveals an extraordinary ability to imagine, create and relate the stories of half dozen people nearly destroyed by their pasts, yet getting some glimmer of hope in Eve’s boarding house, arrived at via Bailey’s Café. Naylor’s characters are desperately seeking salvation, or they will perish by their own evils that they have experienced in their lives. One such character in need is Sadie, whose violent childhood at the hands of a drug-addicted prostitute mother leads her to seek quiet and cleanliness.…
Ever felt uncomfortable being in a burnt body? Everyday use by Alice Walker is a short story about a mother “mama” and her daughter Maggie who was waiting for her other daughter named Dee to return home. Maggie is a character that stood out because she was someone who battled being burned in a house fire as a child. This character can be described as ashamed, dutiful, and good-hearted.…
“The Ballad of the Sad Café,” written by Carson McCullers, takes place in a small, rural town in Georgia. This novella focuses around the life of a store clerk, Ms. Amelia, who was married to a man named Marvin Macy and after ten days of a bitter relationship between the two they got divorced. Several years after this event, a stranger named Cousin Lymon came to town claiming to be Ms. Amelia’s relative. She took a fondness to him and soon Ms. Amelia’s store was turned into a café because the whole town was privy to Cousin Lymon’s personality. Once Marvin Macy returned to the town, he tore Ms. Amelia’s life to shambles by using Cousin Lymon’s weak mindedness to his advantage. Ms. Amelia is a brawny and masculine woman whose personality is far from being tender and sociable. She is cheap and is always looking to get something out of anything, be it money or property. She is considered, amongst the town, to be rich because along with her store/café, Ms. Amelia also owns a still, where she makes her own brand of liquor, and creates homemade remedies for doctoring people in the town. Marvin Macy is the town outlaw who is always doing dirty deeds without regrets. He is a tall, dark,…