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Kate chopin literary criticism
Freedom and restraint in kate chopin's short stories
Freedom and restraint in kate chopin's short stories
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I believe The Governess of the story was a heroine and was genuinely trying to save the kids from the ghosts of the past. While the story does a remarkable job at keeping the story ambiguous about her state of mind, the governess seems to truly trying to protect the children. She doesn’t want to upset their uncle and be fired from the job. The ghosts have a history there and the fact that they are attempting to capture the kids is plausible. As the story develops the ghost of Miss Jessel seemingly became more intensely angry with the governess’s effort to keep Flora away from her. The governess was in a situation where the supernatural beings where real, but the children and the maid either made a consistent effort to act naïve or they did …show more content…
In one of her encounter later encounters with Mrs. Jessel, who spent most of her time around Flora when she resided at the house, was an intense one. Miss Jessel could have had a racy relationship with Peter Quaint, and while she was writing a love letter in the schoolroom The Governess thought she’d been using her pen in her desk. Angered by that and because she, Mrs. Jessel, was doing something The Governess wanted to do only she wanted to send her letter to the uncle. The Governess did not enjoy the thought of becoming like Miss Jessel as seen when she quickly climbed off the stairs because she was in a similar physical position as she envisioned Miss Jessel in earlier. Miss Jessel also had evil implications such as wearing all black and possed the appearance of being weighed down by something, so naturally as a heroine would do The Governess tried to keep Flora away from Miss Jessel which could have upset her. In the end The Governess was able to save Flora from the ghost, but like her brother ill consequences took place as Flora fell sick. Flora also did not recall the ghost at all likely because she was not in control her body during that period of
One issue which, like the rest, can be answered in more than one way is why Mrs. Grose believes in the Governess when she tells her about her ghost encounters. Usually one would second-guess such outlandish stories as the ones that the governess shares throughout the story, yet Mrs. Grose is very quick to believe our borderline-insane narrator. One of the explanations for such behavior could be the underlying fact that Mrs. Grose and the governess have a similar socio-economic background, therefore making them somewhat equal even if the governess does not always seem to think that way. This fact makes them susceptible to trusting and believing each other, and to believing that the ghosts are there, for the people that the ghosts are presenting used to be servants and therefore from a similar socio-economic background. To add on to that, Bruce Robbins proposes in his Marxist criticism of The Turn of the Screw that the idea of a ghost is synonymous to that of a servant, subconsciously making the two lower-class workers of Bly more vulnerable to believe that the ghosts were real; in other words, servants were ghosts....
Within the first 24 hours of the governess arriving at Bly the governess immediately notes that she “slept little that night” (7) . She attributes it to excitement, but the most common sign of insanity is restlessness. Not only was she not sleeping that night, but she thought she heard a child crying and footsteps outside her door and chose to ignore them. Her job as the governess is to handle things like that, but instead she stays in her room, wide awake. Later in the book, after the ghosts had been introduced, she again, didn’t sleep. Instead she went to Miles’s room where an odd conversation ensued and “a gust of frozen air”, which turned out to be Miles, blew out the candle (64). Only an insane governess would have a long conversation with her pupil in the middle of the night. The next time we catch her not sleeping, she runs into Peter Quint late at night, only to come back to her room to find that “Flora’s little bed was empty” (40). Time and time again we see the governor’s restless sleeping patterns and moreover, we see what odd things seem to occur during these
...d in the governess's eyes. After feeling she had lost Flora to the ghost, when in reality the governess had scared the child to death, Miles still shown to be a ray of hope for the demented governess. She refused to leave him alone and began to become angry and suspicious of his corruption when he would ask of his desire for schooling.
Toward the end of the novel, the governess sees Ms. Jessel and tries to point her out to Flora and Mrs. Grose. However, Mrs. Grose questions the governess by wondering “[w]here on earth does [she] see anything?” (James 70). Even though Mrs. Grose claims that she does not see any figure, it is not certain that she is telling the truth. It is obvious that she is overwhelmed in this scene because Flora is fearful of the governess’ behavior. Mrs. Grose is merely trying to be rational and appeal to Flora’s anxiety over the governess’ temperamental and persuasive attitude. Another argument that could appeal to the governess’ insanity is that she is love struck by the master, causing her to be delusional. This is exemplified through her imagining that the master “would appear…and stand before [her] and smile and approve” (James 15). Nonetheless, she is not imagining any people because in the last scene of the novel, Miles recognizes Peter Quint’s presence by implying to the governess that he is in the room. If the governess was creating the ghosts in her mind, Miles would not verbally notice Peter Quint’s presence in the room. The governess is clearly sane and does not simply imagine the
She immediately falls in love with Flora, the youngest child and is excited to meet Miles, the older child. When she sees Flora for the first time, she says “She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen.” (30). She also asks Mrs. Grose, “And the little boy – does he look like her?
Women should be powerful, beautiful and intelligence. Nevertheless, women in the eighteenth century were portrayed as servants did not have any say in anything just like the story of an hour by Kate Chopin, where even in a good marriage you could not do the things you wanted to do. What if their husbands died what would come of them? How would they feel? And the irony of gaining freedom but losing everything?
Through out the short novella, 'The Turn of the Screw,' by Henry James, the governess continually has encounters with apparitions that seem to only appear to her. As Miles' behavior in school worsens so that he is prevented from returning, and as Flora becomes ill with a fever, the governess blames these ghosts for corrupting the children, Miles and Flora, and labels them as evil and manipulative forces in their lives. But why is it that these ghosts only seem to appear to the governess even when the children are present at the time of the sightings by the governess? Evidence from the short story leads the reader to believe that the ghosts are not real but are merely the evidence of the fragmenting sanity of the governess.
with Mrs. Grose, she learns that they are ghosts and former employees of the Gentleman
The governess sees a woman on the other side of the lake and jumps to the conclusion that Flora has seen her and is choosing to act like she didn’t. The child was playing with a boat and had her back turned to the lake. Why would she think that she had to have seen her? There is no proof and does not even ask the child if she saw anything. She automatically assumes it’s Miss Jessel, the previous governess who died and that she is after Flora. She tells her story to Mrs. Grose drawing her in more deeply into believing her crazy hallucinations and Mrs. Grose asks her if she is sure its Miss Jessel and the governess replies “Then ask Flora—she’s sure!” and then immediately comes back to say “no, for God’s sake don’t! She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll lie” ((James 30). She comes to the conclusion that the child will lie about it when there is no reason to suspect that she would. Again, this is her jumping to conclusions, because there is not any proof to say that the children have seen or know anything about the ghost’s. “Thus a very odd relationship develops between the governess and the children, for the more she loves them and pities them and desires to save them, the more she begins to suspect them of treachery, until at last she is convinced that they, in league with the ghosts, are ingeniously tormenting her’ (Bontly 726). “The ghosts appear, thus, when the governess is both aware of the corruption which threatens the children and convinced of her own power to preserve them untainted” (Aswell 53). It’s the governess fabricating all this up in her mind again so she can play the part of
She believes she is actually protecting the children against an outside evil, which happens to coincide with her drive to demonstrate heroism and devotion to the master. According to Purdy, the governess conjures up ghosts because she invited them and willed them to come. Purdy feels the housekeeper plays her trump card and the governess' concern is not for the children but for all that would become of her, her bargain with the master, her relationship, and her passion for him. Purdy finds the following quotes to show her passion for the master and show that this serves as the motive of action.
The governess only hardly indicates that she is scared the ghosts will physically destroy or kill the children. In fact, Miles’s death comes as a surprise to us as readers. This is because we are unrehearsed in the book to think of the ghosts as a physical threat. Till she sends Flora away, the governess does not seem to consider removing the children from the ghosts. She even does not try to scare away the ghost from the house. Instead, the governess’s abilities focus on the ‘corruption’ of the children by the ghost. Before she could realize about quint, the governess thinks that Miles has been corrupting other kids. Although the word corruption is an understatement that permits the governess to remain unclear about what she means. The clear meaning of corruption in this text means exposure to information of sex. According to governess, the children’s exposure to knowledge of sex is a far more dangerous aspect than confronting the living dead or being killed. Therefore, her attempt to save the children is to find out what they know, to make them admit rather than to forecast what might happen to them in the future. Her fear of innoce...
...t want to be the only one who does. It is another feeble attempt to prove her sanity to herself and to others. However, because she “is so easily carried away”, she soon believes that the children do in fact see the ghosts by reading into their every remark and behavior. By piecing all of this together, the governess proves to herself that she is not insane. The governess in The Turn of the Screw, is a highly unreliable narrator. From the beginning of the story, her energetic imagination is displayed to the reader. With this knowledge alone, it would not be irrational to conclude that she had imagined the appearances of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. However, these facts in addition to her unsubstantiated inferences allow the reader to intelligently label the governess as an unreliable narrator. Works Cited Poupard, Dennis. “Henry James.” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism: Volume 24. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale research.; 1990. 313-315.
It seems that the governess starts seeing ghosts at the same time she desires to be in love. The young governess is instantly attracted to the "handsome, bold and pleasant" (p. 7) bachelor uncle of the orphaned children by whom she is hired. It also seems that she has an overwhelmingly obsession with how beautiful a person is. This overpowering feeling was the original incentive for her accepting the job as governess. The governess gives out the sense at the beginning of the novel that she may have been a little desperate seeing as she knew hardly anything about coming to Essex and jumped right at the chance of it. Her craving to ...
The only thing that mattered in her life was Drake. When running from Agi one night, she sees Drake. “Drake is ahead of me, and I have remembered things. Drake makes me remember” (208). Unfortunately, it was dark and Flora did not know where he went and had to wait to see him again. She rushes out of Agi’s house the next morning and finds herself getting help from Henny, a woman who works at a boots shop. Flora was supposed to use Henny’s money to go get some breakfast, but instead, she heads to find
...and her attitude to her father and his work began to change. So while the killing was underway her and her brother were picking up sticks to make a teepee out of. Suddenly there was a lot of commotion and Flora was running free. Her father told her to shut the gate. She ran to the gate and just had just enough time to close it. Instead of closing the gate she opened it wide and let the horse run free. Laird got there just in time to see her do it. When her father and Henry showed up they thought that she didn’t get there in time. They simply got the gun and the knives they used and jumped in the truck. On the way out they stopped and picked up Laird who was begging to go.