Compare And Contrast Claire Of The Sea Light And The Penelopiad

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In both Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat, and in The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, the two anagonists, Claire and Penelope, both have mournful emotions toward the ocean. Both of the girls have saddneing experiences with the ocean that has shaped the way toward people in many ways. Both Claire and Penelope have a common perspective on the ocean because of the negative encounters they have both had with the ocean. To begin, Penelope is thrown in the ocean, as an attempted homocide, by her father. Penelope’s father believes to only way to unweave the shroud of his death caused by a young Penelope is to drown her. Obviously, this plan fails, as “there is always some servant or slave [. . .] ready to regale a child with the awful things …show more content…

. .] that I attribute my reserve, as well as my mistrust of other people’s intentions” (9). The ocean itself does not literallly intentionally try to harm Penelope, but the metaphoritical way it changes her life is irreversible. While, in Claire of the Sea Light, however, Claire is not directly affected by the sea. It is, instead, someone in her small community that tragically dies while fishing alone. The realizization that “you never get back things that fell into the sea” (Danticat. 219) changes Claire’s view on her father drastically. Claire loves her father, Nozias, very much, but holds slight resentment because of his yearly tradition to try to give her away to Madame Gaёlle, so he can make himself a better life, but even after all of this she “[Claire] sometimes wishe[s] the sea would disappear” (220) because “[s]he was always afraid that one day she might have to sing that song [. . .] [n]ot about a hat, but about her heart, about her father”. Claire’s still eternal love for her father overpowers her slight resentment for him, and only wishes to be happy with him because he is all that she has in her life. Relating back to The Penelopiad both women are drastically changed by the

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