More handpicked essays just for you.
How does society influence and shape individuals
An Analysis of the Writing Style of Margaret Atwood
Essay abou A happy ending
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Whether we want to admit to it or not, in today’s society we all play a role. To start we are all initially divided by gender. Therefore; by our gender alone we are automatically stereotyped by those around us. Then we may be narrowed down even more by our social class, finances, intelligence, appearances, race, etc. This is our reality. If not physically, we have at least all mentally set people apart in our heads and stereotyped them. In Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” she uses literary elements such as word diction, perspective, character description, an unreliable narrator, tone, and motif to personify these stereotypes. She is attempting to attack the way we think about each other just through one short story. She touches on class …show more content…
Atwood continues to use short simple phrases to describe two people’s lives as vaguely as possible. The author uses motifs here such as the words; “worthwhile”, “stimulating”, and “challenging”. This is done to reinforce the concept of the character’s mediocre lives. Not only does the author describe their lives in an extremely mundane way, but she also chooses to give them very plain names. The names; “Mary”, “John”, “Fred”, “James”, and “Madge” are all very simple names, none of them tend to stand out. This is where the author draws a parallel between the average name and the average lifestyle. If you were to switch out the names John and Mary in Part A and replace them you would most likely not have to change any of the facts and the story would still apply. That is because this is the generic, cookie cutter, average lifestyle that most people find themselves living. It could apply to anyone. There is nothing special or extraordinary about it. To reiterate her point, Atwood even tells the reader to continue with certain characters using the exact plot in Part A, but with different people. For example, “Madge, …, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.” This directly shows how stereotypical and similar most middle class lives are. This entire piece was made to force the reader to reanalyze their life and the way they are living it. It makes the reader wonder if their life could also be summed up into the vague description in Part
about marriage that our society assumes to be true today. These include ideas about single
...re the reader is not able to make any solid connection with any of these characters. It is arguably only through the stories foreshadowing where both authors prepare us with little details like the mileage of the car written down by the grandmother in O’Connor’s story likewise the boys preparation of the stones in Jackson’s Lottery that would inevitably help the reader to comprehend how both these author’s reached the horrifically shocking climatic endings in both short stories. I believe the authors similar use of these three variables help the reader to understand the message being delivered through these stories of the human condition and its effects on a society that only embraces its traditional moral beliefs and values.
First of all, emphasis is placed on the daily struggles endured on a daily basis by the middle-class. Much like George and Lennie, they worry about having enough money to survive, for shelter and for clothing. Also, there seems to be the fear of loneliness that seems to surface throughout the novel. Despite the on going quarrels between George and Lennie, the two men are afraid of being alone on their own. In addition, it seems the two main characters find themselves in positions that are beyond their control. These are the conflicts one finds in this novel.
Gender identities and gender relations are determined by the culture of a society. Culture makes gender roles meet certain inescapable beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and obligations. Gender politics camouflaged by cultural norms and governed by patriarchal interests and manifested in cultural practices like female genital mutilation, make the life of women difficult and burdensome. Alice Walker’s fifth novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) discusses a tabooed cultural practice called female genital mutilation, camouflaged by gender politics, that is used to subjugate women, to protect the interests of men. Female Genital Mutilation is a painful procedure considered to be a mark of true womanhood in certain cultures. The procedure
human race of the 20th century is birth control. It’s because birth control has increased women’s rights by
The main character tells us that she has a nice family that consists of her husband John and a little baby, but John does unusual things that someone would not expect in a normal marriage. She says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” (Gilman 647). Men back then did not treat or think highly of women due to men being more superior than them. John also seems to complain
Love caused his logic and sensibility to fail him, and provoked him to commit monstrous acts that destroyed many lives. Through analysis of “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood, it can be concluded that one of her many intended lessons was to show the value and the powerful effects of love. Atwood successfully proved this lesson by using powerful examples of both successful and disastrous relationships to illustrate the positive and negative effects of love. Atwood truly demonstrated what it is like to follow your heart.
At the beginning of the story, in plot “A”, John and Mary are introduced as a stereotypical happy couple with stereotypically happy lives of middle class folks. Words like “stimulating” and “challenging” are used repetitiously to describe events in thei...
Names represent a kind of social identity, and Oates' main interest here is in exploring what might happen when her character's social framework and the comfortably predictable life that goes with it are suddenly, and irrevocably, taken away. This, of course, is precisely what happens. What then, Oates seems to be asking, would be left? The answer, which is feverishly detailed in the remaining thirteen pages of this sixteen page story, is something this woman would never have asked for nor anticipated.
Jane does not experience a typical family life throughout the novel. Her various living arrangements led her through different households, yet none were a representation of the norm of family life in the nineteenth century. Through research of families in the nineteenth century, it is clear that Jane’s life does not follow with the stereotypical family made up of a patriarchal father and nurturing mother, both whose primary focus was in raising their children. Jane’s life was void of this true family experience so common during the nineteenth century. Yet, Jane is surrounded by men, who in giving an accurate portrayal of fathers and masculinity in the nineteenth century, fulfill on one hand the father role that had never been present in her life, and on the other hand the husband portrait that Jane seeks out throughout the novel.
Characterization plays an important role when conveying how one’s personality can disintegrate by living in a restrictive society. Although Kat is slowly loosing her mind, in the story, she is portrayed as a confident woman who tries to strive for excellence. This can be seen when she wants to name the magazine “All the Rage”. She claims that “it’s a forties sounds” and that “forties is back” (311). However the board of directors, who were all men, did not approve. They actually “though it was too feminist, of all things” (311). This passage not only shows how gender opportunities is apparent in the society Kat lives in, but also shows the readers why Kat starts to loose her mind.
John, the narrator's husband, represents society at large. Like society, John controls and determines much of what his wife should or should not do, leaving his wife incapable of making her own decisions. John's domineering nature can be accredited to the fact that John is male and also a "physician of high standing" (1). John is "practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of thi...
“Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid is essentially a set of instructions given by an adult, who is assumed to be the mother of the girl, who is laying out the rules of womanhood, in Caribbean society, as expected by the daughter’s gender. These instructions set out by the mother are related to topics including household chores, manners, cooking, social conduct, and relationships. The reader may see these instructions as demanding, but these are a mother’s attempt, out of care for the daughter, to help the daughter to grow up properly. The daughter does not appear to have yet reached adolescence, however, her mother believes that her current behavior will lead her to a life of promiscuity. The mother postulates that her daughter can be saved from a life of promiscuity and ruin by having domestic knowledge that would, in turn also, empower her as a productive member in their community and the head of her future household. This is because the mother assumes that a woman’s reputation and respectability predisposes the quality of a woman’s life in the community.
Margaret is an intelligent, articulate, and ambitious woman who desires to rise up in social status by marrying a man of higher social rank. She attends to those above her, in hopes of elevating her status as she becomes closer to the upper-class. As a minor character, she plays a small yet crucial role in advancing Don John’s plot to slander Hero and spoil her wedding. As a lower-class character, Margaret serves as a foil to the rich girls, particularly Hero, who embodies every attitude and mindset Margaret does not. But she also offers an alternative perspective on the upper-class characters in the play. Because Margaret is victimized because of her social ambitions, punished for wanting to rise above her ...
Individuals who do not know what gender role they are disliked and shamed by society because they are not what society calls “normal”. The definition of normal is conforming to a standard or conforming to the expected. Society should not have the power to make an individual conform to anything. Does a person have to be born female to be female? The answer is simply no. Jenna Talackova is a prime example of this because she was born a man but knew he was a female from the beginning. These people who were born with a specific genetic gender have no control over their chemical make-up, but they do control what gender role they decide to be and no one should tell them to pick one that fits the normal standards of society. Judith Butler writes about gender is her book and how it should not be a preconceived notion. People who have non-normative gender roles struggle daily with the fact that they cannot express who they are because the public would disgrace them and society would not accept them, which are problems that can be solved by a simple lesson of not judging a book by its cover.