Alan Bennett's A Cream Cracker Under The Settee Alan Bennett's purpose in writing "A Cream Cracker Under The Settee" is to highlight the problems old people face. He points out that obsession with hygiene can be destructive "I never should have tried to dust." Everytime the old lady cleans she gets into trouble. He criticises society for neglecting the old "Home help. Home hindrance." Years ago people used to respect the old, look up to them. But now they get swept under the carpet and forgotten about. Bennett also highlights the lack of communication in society "Don't know anybody round here now. Folks opposite, I don't know them." Neighbours used to look out for each other, but now there seems to be less and less interaction because people go out and don't bother with them, long gone is the tight-knit community of the past. It seems that her obsession with housework has been a substitute for a child, she has never got over the fact that she lost her and Wilfreds child. She would not have coped with the mess of a child. The cleaning aspect of the monologue is to teach us that real life is messy and cannot be tidied. To show that this character has not really grown up and moved on her childhood. This monologue also shows the fears old people have. To show that old people can be defiant and that the idea of being in an institution or home dependant on others is too terrible to contemplate. The monologue is a moving and sympathetic portrait of old age. It is emotional and touching at the ending as she decides to die rather than to be institutionalised. Also, the readers' gradual realisation that her obsession wit... ... middle of paper ... ...ries me that in this society old people are just ignored and forgotten about. Swept under the carpet. The old lady lost everything she loved. Her beloved husband Wilfred, her stillborn child, even her ability to clean her own house. Old people don't have any dignity these days. They are at the bottom of the list. People are narrow minded and think that old people are going to die soon so what's the point in bothering with them. I think that in society old people should be given better pensions, taken from government taxes. Bennett monologue opens our eyes to the true feelings of old people today. This highlights the fact that their lives are not all rosy and perfect as some of them appear to be. This poem makes us think that some old people's lives are made so hard that they would potentially take their own life.
The play focusses on three generations of Women, Nan Dear, Gladys and Dolly and where they felt as though they belonged. Nan Dear knew where she belonged and that was the humpy in the flats with her daughter and granddaughter. Nan Dear knows that she won't be accepted into white society just because she is an Aboriginal and those of a different colour or foreign country weren't accepted. Gladys and Dolly both wanted to be accepted into white society, they wanted to feel as though they belonged there.
Bravery is simply finding faith in oneself, accepting risks and danger, and facing fear when no one else will.
“When You Are Old” is about Maud Gonne, an Irish nationalist who William Butler Yeats was infatuated with and his unrequited love for her. In the poem, Maud Gonne is reflecting on past loves and relationships. She realizes that Yeats was her only companion who loved her unconditionally. Many loved her, or said they did, but not in every respect like Yeats. Perhaps if her realization were sooner, Yeats would have married her.
Contrastingly, Mrs. Darling, his wife, is portrayed as a romantic, maternal character. She is a “lovely lady”, who had many suitors yet was “won” by Mr. Darling, who got to her first. However, she is a multifaceted character because her mind is described “like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East”, suggesting that she is, to some extent, an enigma to the other characters, especially Mr. Darling. As well as this, she exemplifies the characteristics of a “perfect mother”. She puts everything in order, including her children’s minds, which is a metaphor for the morals and ethics that she instils in them. Although ...
In the enlightening novel, Between the World and Me, Coates vocalizes his unpopular opinion on living the “American Dream”. He utilizes the symbolism between “black” and “white” as well as life stories to expound on the flaws and dangers of the “Dream”. Coates views the “Dream” as “an enemy of aft, courageous thinking” and banal “white fences and green lawns”. Asserting that those aspiring after the “Dream” are mislead or oblivious.Through his childhood experiences, he demonstrates the life and mindset of those living in the “valley”. Explaining their overwhelming desire to pursue the “Dream” in order to break free of the endless cycle of poverty, fear, and violence. They climb the metaphorical “mountain” but only end up trading a life of fear
I am going to analyze this text using the intrinsic and feminist literary theory analysis. With the intrinsic analysis, I will brood mostly on the style and characterization of the text. According to Eaglestone, 2009, intrinsic analysis is a look into the text for meaning and understanding, assuming it has no connection, whatsoever, to the outside world. “Style is said to be the way one writes as opposed to what one writes about and is that voice that your readers hear when they read your work” (Wiehardt, n.d). The text uses mostly colors, poems and songs to deliver its messages. The main characters in the...
context of the piece and the society in which the characters are living in. Everything
This painting may not look like much at first, but it is full of meaning and emotion whether it’s you who are feeling it or the artist who made it. That artist happens to be the Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent actually made three different versions of this painting, that are currently residing in the Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, and Paris, Musée d'Orsay museums. He also made two sketches of this peace that are in the Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, and Paris, Private collection, he included those sketches in his letters to friends and family. This one specifically is one of the copies that is being help at the Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago. [redundant, you already specified this paintings location in the first part of the paper] A lot is known about this series of paintings since he wrote an abundance of letters about it in detail to his loved ones, he wrote about 13 letters to be exact (Brooks, The Paintings).
2. Consider the women, particularly with regard to their age. In light of their health and their isolation, how does Tea Party present the circumstances of the aged? How can the play be constructed as a social/political argument, with elderly as a
Carson McCullers was a well-known writer who came from the South; she became famous overnight after she wrote her first book: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She wrote many different types of books during her lifetime, with over a dozen books and numerous essays, most of them often touched on the topic of love. Though she wrote about love, it was the typical type of love that you’d expect such as romanticism, but rather, it was the dark type of love (Source 4). Many critics might question why she chose to write those dark and gloomy books; it was because of her love-struggling life that she endured. She met her husband, got married then divorced. At this moment, she was going through too much pain in life. This was when she wrote her first book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which gained her overnight fame among the literature community. She often met new and interesting people in her life, which inspired her to write her novels in such a unique way. After the death of her husband due to a suicidal act, her life was starting to crumble down. With health issues from her habits and inheritance, her life was not wel; this eventually led to her death when she reached the age of fifty in 1967. In The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers portrayed her characters similar to her personal life (Source 5), the people that she met (Source 3), and her personal feelings.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” tells the speaker’s story through several literary devices, allowing the reader to analyze the poem through symbolism, character qualities, and allusions that the work displays. In this way, the reader clearly sees the hopelessness and apathy that the speaker has towards his future. John Steven Childs sums it up well in saying Prufrock’s “chronic indecision blocks him from some important action” (Childs). Each literary device- symbolism, character, and allusion- supports this description. Ultimately, the premise of the poem is Prufrock second guessing himself to no end over talking to a woman, but this issue represents all forms of insecurity and inactivity.
The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faced pain.
also why the author has her speaking in monologue form. It is anoher way we feel
While the monologue addresses the painful situations Blanche has been party to, it is not meant to explain. Instead, it takes on a sarcastically bitter undertone were Blanche’s feelings of resentment towards Stella are hidden under the line level. Here the text develops an image of Blanche stabbing an accusatory finger at Stella while venting her frustrations. This pattern can be observed once again when Blanche cries out, “Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you…” The repetition in this instance helps to emphasize the descriptions that come after each repeated word. By drawing specific attention to these areas, Blanche is luring the audience towards her side, causing them to empathize with her situation—how it was Stella’s fault for abandoning Blanche when she needed the support. Stella appears as the despicable one for letting Blanche suffer through these moments
... her true feelings with her sister, or talking to her husband or reaching out to other sources of help to address her marital repressed life, she would not have to dread living with her husband. “It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long” (Chopin 262). Her meaning for life would not have to mean death to her husband. In conclusion, her lack of self assertion, courage and strong will to address her repressed life made her look at life and death in a different perspective. When in fact there is no need to die to experience liberation while she could have lived a full life to experience it with her husband by her side.