Another voiceless character who neglects to detach herself from the Chinese diaspora is Kingston’s aunt, Moon Orchid. In the story "At Western Palace," Moon Orchid struggles to confront and speak with a husband who abandoned her in China. When Moon Orchid reluctantly faces her Americanized husband, her silence denotes how virtually voiceless a Chinese woman is who lives in a traditional patriarchal society. Although Brave Orchid provides a chance for Moon Orchid to question her husband, Moon Orchid asserts her years of frustration “without any words coming out" (Kingston 153). Instead, Moon Orchid retreats behind her sister to shield for her. In the light of her silence, Mood Orchid realizes that she must have become “a ghost from China” in…
In Hannah Kent’s novel Burial Rights, women are often displayed as a stronger and more capable figure than the men in society. This is shown straight from the beginning in chapter one when Steina is sent by a visitor, in this case being the district commissioner, to go fetch some coffee and milk. Women are abused and taken advantage of within this society; they are there to serve their husbands and or guests and have to work double the time and thrice the effort. Along with this in the novel, women…
In this passage from “No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston imagines what old world China was like, and paints a picture of a repressive, strictly ordered society in which people were essentially unable to have private lives. Everything had to be done for the sake of the family’s or village’s well-being. In such a world, Kingston’s aunt represents the worst kind of transgressor, one whose private lusts disrupted the social order and threatened the very existence of the village. Kingston uses interesting and imaginative stylistic techniques to represent the “circle” or “roundness” of Chinese life and the struggle this creates for both the village and No Name Woman.…
There is a cause-and-effect relationship between No Name Woman and White Tigers. In No Name Women, a nameless aunt becomes notorious and outcast. She finally cannot take much pressure anymore and commits suicide when she gives birth to an illegitimate child. Telling the death of the nameless aunt to Kingston, her mother warns Kingston that “now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful.” (P5) The nameless aunt seems to have no relationship with Kingston, but it reminds Kingston about her community in America. On one hand, her mother brackets them together because she has a negative attitude toward the woman’s role in Chinese society. On the other hand, people who live around Kingston still follow the conservative thoughts just like the villagers. They degrade women’s role in the society and limit women’s freedom. Kingston grows up with the conflicts of two different…
The Grandmother is the main character of the story. She thinks of herself as morally superior to everyone around her just for the fact that she is a lady. In reality, the Grandmother is racist, dishonest, selfish, and quick to judge. Being a lady is the only thing she has going for her and the one and only trait that she is displays proudly. Being seen as a lady is the most important thing to her. “Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the Highway would know at once that she was a lady” (O’Conner 2). Even when facing the Misfit, about to die, the Grandmother relies on her being a lady to save her. She continually pleads “You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you" (8)? She mistakenly believes that because the Misfit is a “good man” his conscience wouldn’t allow him to shoot a lady.…
James Romm wrote Ghost on the Throne with the purpose to inform the reader of Alexander the Great and the empire he established, with the ensuing chaos the came after when Alexander tragically died at a young age. The book was organized somewhat chronologically, starting from opening the tombs in which Alexander was buried and how he fell ill, to the closing of the tombs and a reflection of the fall of his empire. Romm tried to answer the question of how Alexander died, providing multiple theories of how and why he died. Romm seemed to advocate the theory of poison from Alexander’s enemies, including the fact that many people wanted to see Alexander dead. Romm also explained in great detail how the empire fell; the countries wanted to conquer the others just as Alexander had done. However, the giant war led to the end of an empire. Romm explained much about Alexander and his trusted colleagues that were also his closet friends. They had much power over society and probably took advantage over those that did not admire and respect Alexander a much as they and many others did. Alexander was godlike to many of his people, which greatly impacted them when his death humanized him. One assumes that he was not as respected after his death then before. The people put their envy for the power of the empire before their respect for the established government and bloody, royal family.…
The Second chapter of Susan Hills chilling novel, The Woman In Black, is host to some of the conventional gothic aspects found in such ghost stories. The focus of this essay is the first eight paragraphs of the second chapter. Story telling lies at the heart of this novel and there is definite mix within the story of new and old ghost stories which would allow Susan Hill to select what she would have thought to be essential components of a successful ghost narrative. ‘A London Particular’ imparts a strong sense of place, mood, season and of the elements to the point that our main character, Arthur Kipps, is very effected by the various scenarios; whether it be sunny in the open or dark and cloudy. These senses mean the traditional ‘haunting’ fundamentals; an isolated house, narrow empty streets at night (lonely churchyards and convents later on), are heavily relied upon.…
Lady Macbeth completely destroys the idea that women are weak. At the time Macbeth was written, women were not seen as equal to men. They weren’t warriors, like many men were expected to be. One of the first times she speaks, Lady Macbeth reveals that she’s not delicate, and also has a dark personality. She doesn’t need to play by the rules.…
Comparatively, in Irving’s short story, Rip Van Winkle, a man goes up to a mountain to hunt to escape from his wife’s nagging. In the short story, the main character’s desire to escape from his responsibilities and his nagging wife was seen as misogyny from female…
In the story women don’t seem to be “respected” in the society. People don’t think that they are capable of things. The view of people about women do not seem to be that great. It is shown in the story that Waverly is trying to win against male dominated activities such as chess. Bobby Fischer who was a chess champion, says, “There will never be a woman grand master." "Your move, Bobby,” in a magazine caption. This shows that people think that women are not capable and do not have the power to win at anything against men. Waverly proves him wrong by becoming a national chess champion. Waverly also notices one day when she goes to the park, “I saw a group of old men, two seated across a folding table playing a game of chess, others smoking pipes,…
Portrays the female victim as innately weak and oppressed, particularly in honor based killings or domestic violence who is seen as oppressed by their partner…
The reason why this quote is so important is because it creates such a Dilemma in the story. The Powerful voices of her husband, the doctor, and even her family members want her to be passive. In her own eyes though she needs exactly the opposite of being calm and easy going, she wants to be very active. Even though she thinks that she dare not speak it, for her opinion is valued or weighed at a very high level and could never change the situation of her being treated differently. Which kind of relates to the time of the book being written, when all women did was really be house wives and take care of the children. So when they told her to do exactly nothing they literaly ment just sit in a room and stare out the window.…
The central themes of the play are familiar to Gothic horror fiction such as Collins’ Woman in White or Bronte’s Jane Eyre; the character of Kipps is a father, and the character of the Woman in Black is a mother, and so fear of children or infanticide, as well as the fear of death are very prevalent in the story. Not only this, but social morality is also a theme in the same way as it is in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, or Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. The ghost in The Woman in Black is haunting the characters because she has a message for society about the mistreatment of women. Another central theme is the idea of fear and fantasy, in that Kipps wants people to believe his story which, bearing in mind he was the only one who experienced the haunting at Eel Marsh House, nobody seems to. He is therefore planning to put on the performance with the Actor to tell his story, which creates a sense of dramatic irony: at the end of the play the Woman in Black is proved to be haunting Kipps still, and has been playing her own part throughout the story.…
Chisholm stated that women are subject to demeaning experiences no matter where they are. For example, when a woman walks into an office for an interview, “the first questions she will be asked is, ‘Do you type?’” This is demeaning because this makes women think that they cannot achieve greater things in life even if they want to. Another example of this is that the “unspoken assumption is that women are different” and too emotional. When women find out about these things, it puts them down. Although it puts them down, Chisholm was there to bring their spirit back up again. Chisholm also brought up a point about how women are “submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it.” This should not be the case because women should always feel as though they can do what they want when they want to do it. They should not accept that men think that they are not equal even though they are. Women need to fight for what they believe in and not give in to others thought and beliefs. The women have to stand up to the people who think they are not worthy enough to be equal to men. Even if they are standing up to the women that are submitting to the fact that men think they are not equal, it is worth it. This would make them even more brave because they would be standing up to their own. By standing up to their own, they are showing everyone, especially the women, that others opinions do not matter to them, they have their own opinions. She is saying stand up to anyone who thinks that you are not capable of doing what you know you can do. Although bravery is present in realistic situations, bravery is also present in fictional characters in literary works. An example of one of these literary works is the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.…
In The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, there are many aspects that make this book amazing. This story is about what happens to three young adults that were invited to spend the summer at a supposedly haunted house by an older professor trying to prove the existence of supernatural beings and study them. There are many meanings and themes that you can get out of this story, one of them that stands out the most to critics is the idea of feminism. Shirley jackson portrays feminism in many different ways throughout her book, The Haunting of Hill House.…