Theodore Dreiser’s Butcher Rogaum’s Door Theodore Dreiser’s “Butcher Rogaum’s Door,” is about a girl named Theresa Rogaum who is the daughter of German immigrants who have settled in New York City. Theresa frequently disobeys her father by refusing to come home at night when he calls. After only receiving spankings and empty threats as punishment, Theresa continues to disobey her father until one night when he decides to lock her out of the house. In this story, Theodore Dreiser explores themes of human sexuality, rebellion against repressive parents, and the relationship between and different mentalities of immigrant parents and their American-born children. The story “Butcher Rogaum’s Door” contains many parallels to Dreiser whose own father was a strict and deeply religious German immigrant and whose mother was a descendent of Czechoslovakian immigrants. “Butcher Rogaum’s Door,” is generally seen as an example or Dreiser’s realistic writing style that captures his idea of telling “about life as it is (363).” In the story “Butcher Rogaum’s Door,” Theresa is “a budding (eighteen just turning)” who likes to spend time with a neighborhood friend and flirt with two notorious womanizers named Connie Almerting and George Goujon (365). Every night Connie pressures Theresa to stay out later and later, until eventually Theresa has nearly ignored her curfew completely. One night, Mr. Rogaum decides to teach Theresa a lesson by following through on his threat of locking her out, which leads to Theresa spending the night strolling with Connie rather than begging for her parents to let her in. Once Mr. Rogaum realizes his punishment hadn’t achieved what he thought it would and that Theresa had disappeared, he frantically goes out to search... ... middle of paper ... ...Overall, I thought this text was a great example of literary realism and presented many characteristics of realist writing, including the use of an urban setting, the accurate dialect, and the exploration of human motivations including independence, freedom, sexuality and the need to be in control. I also thought the themes presented in this story were similar to those of some of the stories we read in class and that the setting, writing style, and characters put these common themes into a relatable context. Lastly, I think this author and text should be included on future reading lists because Dreiser’s blunt and straightforward writing style, use of engaging characters and events, and entertaining yet valuable storytelling would be worthwhile reading experience that will help students further understand the motivations and different aspects of realist literature.
Out of This Furnace tells a impressive story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the United States in search of a better life in the New World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the "old country." The story tells of his voyage, his work on the railroad to earn enough money to afford the walk to the steel mills of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a "hunkey," and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the cruel treatment and the discrimination they suffer.
Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.
Intergenerational conflicts are an undeniable facet of life. With every generation of society comes new experiences, new ideas, and many times new morals. It is the parent’s job go work around these differences to reach their children and ensure they receive the necessary lessons for life. Flannery O’Connor makes generous use of this idea in several of her works. Within each of the three short stories, we see a very strained relationship between a mother figure and their child. We quickly find that O’Conner sets up the first to be receive the brunt of our attention and to some extent loathing, but as we grow nearer to the work’s characteristic sudden and violent ending, we grow to see the finer details and what really makes these relations
A well-discussed debate in today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to a new surroundings and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seem to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families. Such is the case of Jurgis Rudkus and his extended family, consisting of cousins, in-laws, and their multitude of children. Natives to the country of Lithuania, Jurgis and his family decide that, after Jurgis and his love, Ona, marry, they will move to Chicago to find work in order to support their family.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” are viewed from a woman’s perspective in the nineteenth century. They show the issues on how they are confined to the house. That they are to be stay at home wives and let the husband earn the household income. These stories are both written by American women and how their marriage was brought about. Their husbands were very controlling and treated them more like children instead of their wives. In the nineteenth century their behavior was considered normal at the time. In “The Story of the Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free from the control of their husband’s.
This book has many strong characters who you are going to emphasize while there will be others who are dis-likable. The way characters in the book are given action, I never would have imagined what one has said or ever done. During my readings, I never noticed that this book Mrs. Stockett wrote was fiction due to the part that everything seemed believable during the time of the events. Even when I read from the viewpoints of the League ladies suchlike Miss Hilly, to the maids who work for them people. Though, The Help, could have veered into violent representation, Mrs. Stockett does not take it there by giving life intimacy along with inter household connections.
The busy season for the shop she was working on came and the owner of the shop kept demanding for what we call overtime. She got fired after she said, “I only want to go home. I only want the evening to myself!.” Yezierska was regretful and bitter about what happened because she ended up in cold and hunger. After a while she became a trained worker and acquired a better shelter. An English class for foreigners began in the factory she was working for. She went to the teacher for advice in how to find what she wanted to do. The teacher advised her to join the Women’s Association, where a group of American women helps people find themselves. One of the women in the social club hit her with the reality that “America is no Utopia.” Yezierska felt so hopeless. She wondered what made Americans so far apart from her, so she began to read the American history. She learned the difference between her and the Pilgrims. When she found herself on the lonely, untrodden path, she lost heart and finally said that there’s no America. She was disappointed and depressed in the
In Gilman’s story The Yellow Wallpaper, and in Chopin’s story The Story of an Hour are two feminist stories, which freedom is the main theme. In the nineteenth century, women were supposed to take care of their children and obey their husbands. “Women of the mid-19th century had no such choices. Most lived in a state little better than slavery. They had to obey men, because in most cases men held all the resources and women had no independent means of subsistence” (Wojtczak). The Yellow Wallpaper, takes a devastating look at the oppressive relationships between middle class husband and wife, doctor and patient. The Story of an Hour describes a moment of awareness when Mrs. Mallard realizes how she really feels about her life and situation. The news of her husband’s death shocks her into an awareness that seems to overtake her against her will. Mrs. Mallard and the narrator both express they want to be free, but unfortunately they achieve freedom through insanity and death. Freedom is accomplished in an unusual way in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an hour; the freedom these women attained is not readily obtainable to most women in the 19th century.
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of the Hour” and Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” is viewed from a woman’s perspective of the nineteenth century. They showed the issues on how they were confined to the house. That they were to be stay at home wives and let the husband earn the household income. These stories are both written by American women and how their marriage was brought about. Their husbands were very controlling and treated them more like children instead of their wives. In the nineteenth century their behavior was considered normal at the time. In “The Story of the Hour” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” both women explore their issues on wanting to be free of the control of their husband.
...ed by the ancient symbol of fear, conveys the child's panic. The mother's approach is a source of terror for the child, written as if it is a horror movie, suspense created with the footsteps, the physical embodiment of fear, the doorknob turns. His terror as 'he tries to run' but 'her large hands hold him fast' is indicative of his powerless plight. The phrase, 'She loves him...' reiterates that this act signifies entrapment as there is no reciprocation of the ‘love’. It is ironic that her love is deemed 'the frightening fact'. Clearly this form of love will destroy his innocence, his freedom to think for himself, his ability to achieve emotional fulfilment. We sense the overpowering, suffocating nature of this form of love, but also the nature of American cultural imperialism, which is similarly stifling to the development of national identity and fulfilment.
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
Anzia Yezierska has written two short story collections and four novels about the struggles of Jewish immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side. Yezierska stories explore the subject of characters’ struggling with the disillusioning America of poverty and exploitation while they search for the ‘real’ America of their ideals. She presents the struggles of women against family, religious injunctions, and social-economic obstacles in order to create for herself an independent style. Her stories all incorporate autobiographical components. She was not a master of style, plot development or characterization, but the intensity of feeling and aspiration are evident in her narratives that overrides her imperfections.
In “Hills Like White Elephants” and “The Story of an Hour”, the woman in each story imprisons in the domestic sphere. In “Hills Like White Elephants”, the woman in this story conflicts between keeping the baby or getting abortion although the relationship with her boyfriend would not improve as he said. In “The Story of an Hour”, even though Louise Mallard, an intelligent, independent woman understands that she should grieve for Brently, her husband and worry for her future, she cannot help herself from rejoice at her newfound freedom. The author of this story, Kate Chopin suggests that even with a happy marriage, the loss of freedom and the restraint are the results that cannot be avoid.
How does one compare the life of women to men in late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century America? In this time the rights of women were progressing in the United States and there were two important authors, Kate Chopin and John Steinbeck. These authors may have shown the readers a glimpse of the inner sentiments of women in that time. They both wrote a fictitious story about women’s restraints by a masculine driven society that may have some realism to what women’s inequities may have been. The trials of the protagonists in both narratives are distinctive in many ways, only similar when it totals the macho goaded culture of that time. Even so, In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing we hold two unlike fictional characters in two very different short stories similar to Elisa Allen in the “Chrysanthemums” and Mrs. Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”, that have unusual struggles that came from the same sort of antagonist.