“What the Old Man Does is Always Right” – A Review Hans Christian Andersen adapted the short story, “What the Old Man Does is Always Right” from a Danish folklore titled, "Gudbrand on the Hillside". (Garry, et. al. 2005) It was noticeable how Andersen romanticized fairy tales by combining folk art with the comical elements of life. (Cole, et.al. 1983) Having experienced life’s simplicity by belonging to the lowest social class in his time, Andersen had firsthand account of his protagonists in his fairy tales which are his greatest contribution to world literature. (Wullschläger, 2001) Andersen also wrote “The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Princess and the Pea”, and “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, wherein he also showed detailed understanding …show more content…
First, the writer wanted to emphasize the need for love and wholehearted trust of a woman to her husband, in the same manner that was taught in the Holy Scripture. Second, the author highlighted the ripple effect of optimism or positivity in retaining happiness and attracting wealth. Third, Andersen definitely succeeded in sharing with his readers the seemingly vague repercussion of a series of unfortunate events that eventually resulted to the main characters’ justification of their actions. The farmer, who may be deprived of education and material possessions, had a sound mind in a sound body because he had everything he could ever want or need, which was love and happiness from his wife. The benefit of a happy and trusting marriage was one theme in this story that would absolutely inspire those who are starting to lose hope of having a lasting marriage. Another theme along these lines is the importance of personal happiness in having the capacity to overcome any obstacle in life. I have a cousin who can relate well to the two major characters in the story, the farmer and his wife, but in his case, his father would take the position of the wife who wholeheartedly believed him. His father was a Vietnam War veteran who was a double amputee and my cousin took care of him until his passing. My cousin had to do all
Edelman 's purpose in writing this essay is to show two sides: she wants to show the reader how her husband has abandoned her, but also cares to inform the perfect ideal of marriage that everyone grows up with is not completely achievable. Furthermore, Edelman wants the reader to feel sympathy for her situation and understand why it has taken such a toll on her life. She uses anecdotal evidence from her own life and how she handles the situations to get this point across. This choice impacts the article by creating a one sided slant because she never interviews her husband to find out how he is feeling about the situation. Edelman blames her husband for working more hours and not being around to help with the parenting, like they were supposed to be doing together. She explains how before her husband began working crazy hours, she too, was a working mother, but now the more and more hours he works, the more she needs to be present at home. Edelman says, “It began to make me spitting mad, the way the daily duties of parenting and home ownership started to rest entirely on me.” (53). She feels betrayed by her husband
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, everyone has different ideas of what marriage is. In the end Janie learned marriage is what you make of it. Love can only be found when your beliefs match with an others idea. Even today people find out the hard way that they are not compatible and that one’s view of marriage is different. This can be seen every day between couples who separate and among others whose marriages last the rest of their lives. Life is a learning process and we must take the bad with the good. Instead of searching for a nourishing life, Janie searched for someone to rely on. Although they were different types of reliance, she jumped from person to person so that she would not have to face life alone.
Edna Pontellier was on her way to an awakening. She realized during the book, she was not happy with her position in life. It is apparent that she had never really been fully unaware However, because her own summary of this was some sort of blissful ignorance. Especially in the years of life before her newly appearing independence, THE READER SEES HOW she has never been content with the way her life had turned out. For example she admits she married Mr. Pontellier out of convenience rather than love. EDNA knew he loved her, but she did not love him. It was not that she did not know what love was, for she had BEEN INFATUATED BEFORE, AND BELIEVED IT WAS love. She consciously chose to marry Mr. Pontellier even though she did not love him. When she falls in love with Robert she regrets her decision TO MARRY Mr. Pontellier. HOWEVER, readers should not sympathize, because she was the one who set her own trap. She did not love her husband when she married him, but SHE never once ADMITS that it was a bad decision. She attributes all the problems of her marriage to the way IN WHICH SOCIETY HAS defined the roles of men and women. She does not ACCEPT ANY OF THE BLAME, AS HER OWN. The only other example of married life, in the book, is Mr. and Mrs. Ratignolle, who portray the traditional role of married men and women of the time. Mr. Pontellier also seems to be a typical man of society. Edna, ON THE OTHER HAND, was not A TYPICAL WOMAN OF SOCIETY. Mr. Pontellier knew this but OBVIOUSLY HAD NOT ALWAYS. This shows IS APPARENT in the complete lack of constructive communication between the two. If she had been able to communicate with her husband they may have been able to work OUT THEIR PROBLEMS, WHICH MIGHT HAVE MADE Edna MORE SATISFIED WITH her life.
In today’s society, the notion and belief of growing old, getting married, having kids, and a maintaining of a happy family, seems to be a common value among most people. In Kevin Brockmeier’s short story, “The Ceiling,” Brockmeier implies that marriage is not necessary in our society. In fact, Brockmeier criticizes the belief of marriage in his literary work. Brockmeier reveals that marriage usually leads to or ends in disaster, specifically, all marriages are doomed to fail from the start. Throughout the story, the male protagonist, the husband, becomes more and more separated from his wife. As the tension increases between the protagonist and his wife, Brockmeier symbolizes a failing marriage between the husband and wife as he depicts the ceiling in the sky closing upon the town in which they live, and eventually crushing the town entirely as a whole.
In "the story of an hour" Chopin discuss how getting married can lead you to live a life of anguish. In the beginning of the short story Mrs. Mallard revives terrible news that her husband has been recently killed, she "Wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment." This intense reaction is how society would expect her to act if your husband dies. Mrs. Mallard then goes into her bedroom to grieve alone: "She could see in the open square before her house the tops of the trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life." Seeing the open square makes her crave freedom, something she doesn't remembering having. The new spring life will eventually represent her new-found freedom and happiness. As she stares outside the window she thinks, but "It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought." She is critically thinking of what will come and what has just happened, she has not ever has to think for herself, her husband always did that for her. This is the first time her feelings start to stir, she tries to process the information more to figure out what they mean.
“Like a river flows so surely to the sea darling, so it goes some things are meant to be.” In literature there have been a copious amount of works that can be attributed to the theme of love and marriage. These works convey the thoughts and actions in which we as people handle every day, and are meant to depict how both love and marriage can effect one’s life. This theme is evident in both “The Storm” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman; both stories have the underlying theme of love and marriage, but are interpreted in different ways. Both in “The Storm” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the women are the main focus of the story. In “The Storm” you have Calixta, a seemingly happy married woman who cheats on her husband with an “old-time infatuation” during a storm, and then proceeds to go about the rest of her day as if nothing has happened when her husband and son return. Then you have “The Yellow Wallpaper” where the narrator—who remains nameless—is basically kept prisoner in her own house by her husband and eventually is driven to the point of insanity.
The problem we find in this story, and in puritanism, is that it presents contrasting views of love. Attachment to earthly possessions, to other people in fact, is discouraged, because everything physical leads to temptation and damnation, and ultimately hell, while the road to salvation of the individual wanders through a spiritual discipline, rigour, austerity. A man should not love his wife more than he loves God; in fact, it is recommended that he not derive pleasure from his wife, but rather seek suffering, in order to redeem himself from his earthly condition, his impure state.
Immediately, the narrator stereotypes the couple by saying “they looked unmistakably married” (1). The couple symbolizes a relationship. Because marriage is the deepest human relationship, Brush chose a married couple to underscore her message and strengthen the story. The husband’s words weaken their relationship. When the man rejects his wife’s gift with “punishing…quick, curt, and unkind” (19) words, he is being selfish. Selfishness is a matter of taking, just as love is a matter of giving. He has taken her emotional energy, and she is left “crying quietly and heartbrokenly” (21). Using unkind words, the husband drains his wife of emotional strength and damages their relationship.
Marriage can be seen as a subtle form of oppression, like many things which are dictated by social expectations. In Kate Chopin’s The Story of An Hour, Louise Mallard finds herself in distress due to the event of her husband’s death that makes her question who she is as a person. The author cleverly uses this event to create the right atmosphere for Mrs. Mallard to fight against her own mind. As the short story progresses, we see that Mrs. Mallard moves forward with her new life and finds peace in her decision to live for herself. This shows that marriage too is another chain that holds oneself back. Not wanting to admit this to herself, Louise
Edna marries her husband, not out of love, but out of expectation of society and her family’s dislike of him. She is a young woman when they marry; she has never had a great romance. The closest thing to passion she
In both Hans Christian Andersons “The Little Mermaid,” and Disney’s version of the story, the main character— a young and beautiful mermaid— waits anxiously for her fifteenth birthday to venture from her father’s underwater castle to the world above the water. As the story carries on the mermaids priorities change; her modest and selfless nature is revealed towards the end in Andersen’s version. However, Disney’s version encompasses a rather shallow ending and plot throughout. The theme found in comparing the two versions reveal that Andersen’s substance trumps Disney’s entertainment factor in fairy tales.
It was late I thought. Almost midnight yet I was still unable to sleep. I stared thoughtlessly at the moving shadows mumbling to myself, "it was just a story" but in my heart I knew it wasn't, it was more than a story, much, much more. Then, a crow appeared in the middle of my room. The crow stared at me with such intensity that I fell backwards into the safety of my pillow. I stared at the crow in shock as it disappeared into my closet and that's when I heard it, a long piercing whine that was like a nail to a chalkboard. I prayed that it would go away, I prayed with all my heart but it stayed there continuing its long whine. It was then when I caught a glimpse of it. I saw two glowing bloodshot eyes stare at me. I let out a scream born from terror and almost immediately my dad came bursting into my room. He stared at me with confusion but all I could do was point a shaking finger at my closet door. Cautiously, my father marched into the closet door only to find nothing inside. Then, without warning, the closet door slammed shut along with my father still inside.
Now that we have a little background on the author, we can take a closer look at the actual work and its characters. The two main characters of the story a narrator and her husband, John, and the story takes place in the 19th century. Life for the two is like most other marriages in this time frame, only the narrator is not like most other wives. She has this inner desire to be free from the societal roles that confine her and to focus on her writing, while John in content with his life and thinks that his wife overreacts to everything. Traditionally, in this era, the man was responsible for taking care of the woman both financially and emotionally, while the woman was solely responsible for remaining at home. This w...
For many, marriage is the most important steps in life because it doesn’t just represent two people taking a vow to be with each other. But marriage also exemplifies purity and singularity because it gives people the strength to overcome any temptations by engaging in a love that can be given and received physically, emotionally, and spiritually. However, in The Story of an Hour, Chopin also displays how all marriages can be oppressive, even the “kindest and loving” ones, which implies that people just want to be free physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She does this by having Louise Mallard react to her husband’s death with joy and also not having any sort of bitterness or contempt over his passing either.
As Chopin mentions, “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with shudder that life might be long”(497). Just the thought of having a long life in your marriage makes you shudder shows that Mrs. Mallard was not happy in her marriage. Mrs. Mallard was happy about living a long life once she accepted the fact of freedom once her husband died. As Cathryn Hunter mentions, “The serious and wide-ranging negative effects that relationship distress can have on individuals”(55). The relationship distress played a toll on Mrs. Mallard mainly because although she was sad that her husband death, she could not help but feel free.