Catherine has many things to do in this book i'm not surprised that she didn't go insane. This tells you that there are good and bad things of being a woman. In the novel, Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, it shows us what a royal woman had to live through, her life has some good parts and some bad parts. The author shows us by doing it in a diary that she was forced to make because Edward said to make it. Imagine having a devil for a dad for your whole life, that's how Catherine feels. "I could be a traveling spinner, but that is no escape. I am left with my father" (22). She wants to have a free life but her father doesn't let her do anything. Her father does this because he is very cruel and he is like a devil walking on Earth. "Wherever I go I cannot escape my life" (162). This means that her dad is powerful so if she leaves her dad will find her. She has to admit to herself that she is Catherine and cannot be anyone else. This takes a lot of courage to do because she has to face the abomination of a dad and I could not do that because he would just beat me like in the book. …show more content…
If everyone had as much lady-tasks as Catherine everyone would be depressed."I can stand no more of lady-tasks,endless mindless sewing, hemming, brewing, doctoring, and counting Linen" (10)!
Since she is a women she has to do a lot more chores around the house then the men. She has to have a lot of patience to do that because I would lose it if I had to do that many chores. "More lady-lessons. It is impossible to do all and still be all a lady must be and not tie oneself in a knot" (118). This would be so hard to do all that and still have to be kind and stable enough to find a husband. this shows how tough she is by staying in control while doing all the chores. This shows dedication because she is dedicated to finish all of her work so she can have some free
time. What if you were married to an ogre for your families finance and you had no escape,that is how Catherine feels about Shaggy Beard. "I must escape or I will be Lady Shaggy Beard until I die" (99). This means that she wants to escape her family so she does not have to marry Shaggy Beard. This shows that once she thinks of something, she must do it. "I decided I cannot escape my life, but only use my determination and courage and make the best I can" (163). This is when she realizes that she cannot escape and she has to live with herself and her family. This is hard to do because you have to own up to stuff and live with it. This shows both determination and courage because she shows that she can run away and can also go through with it. This shows that Catherine has to have a lot of courage and determination to live the life that she has.
Catherine first becomes exposed to the opposing forces as she experiments with her desires for love and a better quality of life. *6* Because she constantly shifts priorities from one man to the other, her love for Heathcliff and Edgar results in a destructive disequilibrium. *1*In the novel, Cathy is portrayed as a lady with untamable emotions. *7* In her childhood she learns to l...
Catherine is like a bird stuck in it's cage. If you hold the bird in it's cage it will want to fly out of it even if you were to put food inside. However the Bird that was not kept in its cage then it will walk right inside and eat the food. In the book, Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, Catherine is the main character and is forced to do and deal with many things. Throughout the novel she is to deal with every situation to the best of her abilities and she makes the right choices, except when she doesn't. Three situations or problems she faces with courage and Determination are, she is forced to marry Shaggy Beard, Deal with the wrath of her Father, and try to avoid her lady lessons.
The conflict Catherine faces is Person versus self. “Little Bird, in the world to come, you will not be asked ‘why were you not George?’ or ‘why were you not Perkin?’ but ‘why were you not Catherine?’ ” (Cushman 17). It is depicted that Catherine tried to be everyone else but not herself. Hence, Catherine’s conflict is internal because she must change her conceptions. Catherine must accept who she is. Catherine’s conflict is resolved in the resolution. Catherine understands the Jewish woman’s advice. “And it came to my mind that I cannot run away. I am who I am wherever I am” (Cushman 202). Catherine understands she cannot be like Perkin or George, and she will not be asked if why she was not like Perkin or George. However, Catherine will be asked why she did not act like herself, and why she was not
Talking about her past, present and her future. At this point the audience knows that Robert is not living. He is just a manifestation Catherine is experiencing. Catherine doesn’t know that her father is not alive. But she deals with it nevertheless. She has a conversation with him as if he were real. She keeps the father-daughter talk real. Although Robert was mentally ill as a result of his mathematic skills, Catherine is wo...
Art and literature work independently of each other, however, they can be linked together to help a reader or observer understand in new ways and create new possibilities. Within this context, the perspective of Jacob Lawrence and the authors address that it takes work to build the ideal society and family. However, the authors give the stark reality of both society and family demonstrating that our reality is nothing like the ideal.
In the 1950’s, a woman’s life path was pretty clear cut, graduate from high school and find a good man while your ultimate goal is to start a family and maintain an orderly house. This is shown when Kingston says to the little girl “Some one has to marry you before you can become a housewife.” She says this as if becoming a housewife is a top priority for a woman. However presently, most women in America hold very respectable jobs and the role as housewife is slowly disappearing from American culture. Another example of modern day women showing strength is portrayed when the narrator’s mother goes on a cultural rampage and forces the narrator to go to the drug store and demand a piece of candy simply because the druggist missed the address of the house. This scene is shown in pages three, four, and five. By doing so the narrator comes off as poor and illogical.
Due to the women having roles like men, this does not follow the patriarchal ideology that most stories do. To be specific, even in this day in age, most households are in charge by men and women do not have equal say, and in this story, it shows that the roles are being reversed. Although, it does not show complete gender equality because the husband is unemployed and just because his wife makes more than him, he is being disrespected. However, they are married she tends to be friends with males that her own husband does not like, and just because her husband is not unemployed she is taking advantage. To conclude, the women is being fully appreciated since she has a job and she is in charge of the household, but the women is oppressing her husband just how men oppress women these days.
Her selfishness lies within the reality that she married Linton for the things he could have provided for her. Nothing parted Catherine and Heathcliff. Not God, nor Satan, it was Catherine herself – Catherine was the cause of her broken heart. Along with breaking her heart, she also broke Heathcliff’s, which led him to loathe and yearn for vengeance against what Heathcliff thought was the cause of Catherine’s death – her daughter.
Catherine is trapped between her love of Heathcliff and her love for Edgar, setting the two men down a path of destruction, a whirlwind of anger and resentment that Catherine gets caught in the middle of. Catherine is drawn to Heathcliff because of his fiery personality, their raw attraction and one certainly gets the sense that they are drawn together on a deeper level, that perhaps they are soulmates. C. Day Lewis thought so, when he declared that Heathcliff and Catherine "represent the essential isolation of the soul...two halves of a single soul–forever sundered and struggling to unite." This certainly seems to be backed up in the novel when Catherine exclaims “Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being...” This shows clearly the struggle Catherine feels as she is drawn spiritually to Heathcliff, but also to Edgar for very different reasons. Edgar attracts Catherine predominantly because he is of the right social class. Catherine finds him "handsome, and pleasant to be with," but her feelings for him seem petty when compared to the ones she harbours...
The first, most obvious trait of Catherine’s heroism is that she values human relationships above materialism. Nothing is more important to Catherine than her lover, Henry, and as the novel goes on, her baby. When Henry is injured and sent to Milan, she has no trouble transferring to the new hospital there. Catherine loves Henry and would drop anything to be with him. Nothing material holds her back from being with him. Even when they live in Switzerland, they don’t have many material possessions. They live very simple lives because all the couple really needs is each other. In chapter forty, Henry describes their time together with this quote, "When there was a good day we had a splendid time and we never had a bad time. We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together." Catherine obviously values her time with Henry more than anyone else, but it isn’t the physical aspect of getting out and doing things that satisfies her. What satisfies Catherine is the extra time she gets to spend with the love of her life b...
Gargano rightly shifts the critical debate from fascination with the ethical conundrum of Dr. Sloper's behavior to concentration on the process of self-realization which takes place slowly and silently in Catherine's mind (Gargano 355). Finding proof of his thesis in the exacting way James investigates Catherine's growth, Gargano sees that James has purposely shown Catherine as innocent in the beginning of the story to demonstrate a contrast to who she becomes as she begins to wake up to herself as the story progresses, and contends that upon meeting Townsend, Catherine "emerg[es] from a sort of dormancy" (Gorgano 356). Gorgano astutely points out that meeting Townsend is not a horrible mishap in the life of Catherine Sloper, but an event which catalyzes the girl to mature in her thinking and feeling. Gargano pays special attention not only to Catherine's behavioral changes, but to the way James notes those changes as part of an inner process (Gargano 356). From her deceptive replies to her father's straight forward questions to the realization that she is separate and autonomous, Catherine evolves and becomes more sophisticated emotionally leaving all the other main characters to continue operating in their predictable ways.... ...
When Catherine is compelled to stay at Thrushcross Grange to recover from her injury, she returns as “a very dignified person” (Brontë 37). Her association with the gente... ... middle of paper ... ... d to Cathy. He desires to be accepted by her.
...Catherine are not married. She tries to comfort Ferguson instead of becoming angered, as Frederic does. Also when fleeing to Switzerland Catherine keeps her calm to successfully acquire visas so that they can stay and Lt. Henry will not be captured. The most obvious place in the novel where Catherine shows she is not scared of death and how well she remains graceful, even under pressure is during her painful labor. She does her best to stay positive even though she becomes certain she is going to die, and she is constantly reassuring Frederic. She says everything from “Don’t mind me, darling. Please don’t cry. Don’t mind me,” to “Don’t worry darling, I’m not a bit afraid. It’s just a dirty trick,” in hopes of comforting Frederic. Even though she is in great pain she is not thinking about herself, but instead Frederic just as she does for the duration of the novel.
Catherine’s revenge does not make things better for her. Her revenge on Heathcliff by blaming him for her upcoming death does not meliorate her mind. Just before she dies, she ascribes Heathcliff for her “murder.” “You have killed me, and thriven on it, I think” (Bronte 158). Catherine resembles what Oliver Goldsmith said, “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy?
Catherine's dilemma begins in an overtly conventional yet dismal setting. This is the ordered and understated fashionable New York setting where she is victim to her father's calculated disregard and domineering behaviour and of the perceptions others have of her given their economic and social positions. She is, in Sloper's words, "absolutely unattractive." She is twenty, yet has never before, as Sloper points out, received suitors in the house. Mrs. Almond's protestations that Catherine is not unappealing are little more than a matter of form and she is admonished by Sloper for suggesting he give Catherine "more justice." Mrs. Penniman, for her part, readily perceives that without Catherine's full inheritance, Morris Townsend would have "nothing to enjoy" and proceeds to establish her role in appeasing her brother and giving incoherent counsel to the courtship between Catherine and Townsend. For Townsend himself, Catherine's "inferior characteristics" are a matter of course and a means to a financial end.