"Changing attitudes in Britain Society towards women was the major reason why some women received the vote in 1918". How accurate is this view?…
While reading the book about Henrietta Lacks and her famous HeLa cells, a few issues came to mind. The first is definitely informed consent and the issues surrounding the medical work with the cells. The second issue that I thought about was Henrietta’s struggle as well as her family’s continuing struggle while she was ill and for years after her death. I am also intrigued about the story behind a white woman making the information about HeLa so well known and how recognition of the cells and their importance is conveyed.…
Who should profit from the HeLa cells in particular, and medical advances in general? Does the Lacks family have any claim to the money that has been made from HeLa?…
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about a Southern-Christian African-American woman who has developed a deadly disease, in which she later dies of. What stands out in the book the most is how Mrs. Lacks was treated because of her ethnicity and how Skloot's race played a role in some of the treatment in the book. Reading this, I thought to myself: if Henrietta would have been white in her lifetime, she would have had a better advantage in life. If Skloot would have been African-American she probably would have emphasized racism. If both of their races would have been different, the whole perspective of the book would have changed.…
Shows guilt beyond her control – the wall separating her from her son creates guilt…
The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so imbedded in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will let it alone and talk about the house." Her husband suggests enormous amounts of bed rest and no human interaction…
In "A Sorrowful Woman" the wife is depressed with her life, so much so, "The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again"(p.1). This wife and mother has come to detest her life, the sight of her family, and withdraws into a deep depression. The “wife” is unhappy in her life because she wants more than to be just a wife and mother. She wants a life outside the home but doesn’t know how to get it, so she blames her existing life and family. This unhappiness goes against society’s view that a woman should be satisfied being a wife and mother. Proof of the stereotypical relationship is the husband character. It’s not that he is written as dislikeable, but rather likable, strong, and completely in control, “He managed everything"(p.3). He never gets mad; he makes no demands of her to improve. He enables her “sickness” by preparing her “medication,” hiring help, and keeping her child away. He, however, never takes on an active role to help her. He doesn’t communicate with her. He doesn’t get her physiological help. He makes no attempt to prove her value to him, the child, or the house. Clearly he believes he’s in control. Her depression turns into anger with her life. She blames her family and acts out, "After supper several nights later, she hit the child. She had known she was going to do it when the father would see"(p. 2). In the end, she knows her life isn’t enough, but it isn’t the family’s fault. She goes to the kitchen and…
Everyone has felt jealousy at one point in their lives, but the real concern is if you’re going to let that feeling take over you. I “The New You”, Martha lets jealousy take over her, which lets her achieve what she wants, but at the same time, she loses something very important from her life. The author of “The New You” uses revealing actions to show that Martha/Marnie will always lack something, and that she will never be satisfied because she always wants to be perfect.…
“The novel Of Mice and Men is more than just the tragedy of Lennie; it shows the sadness and suffering of many individuals in a harsh world.” Discuss this statement, making close reference to the text.…
Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” is a fairy-tale story gone wrong centered on her perception of marriage and motherhood. The plot illustrates the manner in which a woman slowly withdrawals from her husband and son, her home, and the world. Godwin’s sad and depressed female protagonist feels burdened by the demands of her family even through her husband and child are nothing but loving and loyal. As we continue to read about the daily doings of this woman, we find that she gradually shuts them completely out of her life. Unsatisfied with her role as a dutiful mother and wife, she “tried these personalities on like costumes, then discarded them.” With this story, all ends “unhappily ever after.”…
The narrator is the son of the mother in the story and he feels awful for what he has thought about his mother. He says he has “unworthy feelings” as he loves his mother but also realizes she needs to leave in order for him to have his own life. The narrator stands for the other theme of remorse and guilt. He is guilty of much concerning his mother and he realizes she is “all the family I have left” (Carver, 588). Torn between the two women in his life, he cannot decide if he should move to where his mother is or if he should stay with his girlfriend. As depicted in the text, he feels torn about “the woman who brought me into this life and this other woman I picked up with less than a year ago” (Carver, 589). The narrator knows this for sure when he says they could “tear me apart” (Carver 589). The narrator’s ultimate decision is to either move back with his mother or to start his own life and live with his girlfriend, Jill. The narrator feels entrapped inside psychological boxes or in other words, his own…
Many stories start off with a hero. Though there are many types of heroes in the world, the ones that stuck out the most would be epic heroes and the tragic heros. Epic heroes face many obstacles and they reach a low point, they quickly pick themselves up. In the end they usually return home from the journey they have been on and they end happy. Tragic heroes go on an emotional quest to find out more about themselves. They usually learn something about themselves during the journey, but ends up unhappy. In many books and stories that people read, the people in the stories are always facing something new and they become challenged from the evil people…
completely consumed by jealousy and are unable to see past it. The negative consequences are shown by the fates of…
The death of her husband makes her happy because marriage confined her and she wasn't…
Although we may think that she is kind and genuine, we can understand that it is not the case if we analyse the story long enough. The unnamed woman does not see that her husband is jealous and forgets that the visit might be awkward for him. Anyhow, due to the lack of her presence in the story, her past is the only thing that can give us a major description of the wife. Carver explains that the fact that she is so unhappy is because of her past relationships through the audiotapes she sends to Robert. Her last partner was part of the military forces, which made them move a lot. “My wife’s officer was posted to one base and then another. She sent tapes from Moody AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near Sacramento, where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out. But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up” (Carver, 1981). She felt so lonely and eventually fell into depression, which led her to a suicide attempt. Her attachment to Robert comes from the fact that they still kept in touch even though they were so far from each other, unlike all the other people she had to lose from moving so…