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Critical analysis of margaret atwood
Critical analysis of margaret atwood
Critical analysis of margaret atwood
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Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist and poet whose writing usually treats contemporary issues, such as feminism, sexual politics, and the intrusive nature of mass society. While she is best known for her works as a novelist, her poetry is also noteworthy. One of her notable poems, “Habitation,” discusses the seriousness of marriage. The speaker basically gives a message that the marriage is not a game or a play; rather, it is a serious, unstable condition that calls for a lot of effort and attention to maintain harmony. In “Habitation,” Atwood uses simple, basic images such as the forest, desert, unpainted stairs, and fire to give a realistic view of marriage. In addition, these images give the poem optimism about unstable conditions of the marriage that can be improved to a happy marriage as a result of effort and attention between couple.
First, images the speaker uses while he or she is talking are about the reality of marriage: the “forest,” (4) “desert,” (5) “unpainted stairs,” (6) “glacier,” (9) and “fire.” (13) These images imply harsh conditions of marriage and interestingly have a connection to the title of the poem, “Habitation,” because the imagery shows a reality of marriage as “Habitation” describes the form of the realistic marriage. In other words, images are the tool and the title of the poem is the form to describe the reality of marriage. When Atwood introduces simple images, she uses the word “edge of” before each image: “the edge of the forest,” (4) “the edge of the desert,” (5) “the edge of the receding glacier.” (9) Usually, the “edge” of somewhere is not a good place to stay and sounds dangerous, so all these “edge” images represent the volatility between newlyweds at the beginning of marriage. On the ...
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...istic fantasy of the marriage, but the reality does not always follow the dream. Therefore, the newlyweds adjust their view on marriage according to the reality, and this adjustment represents the “fire” in the last line of poem. These two approaches to interpret “fire” show the optimistic outcome of marriage while the image also describes the reality of marriage.
In “Habitation”, Atwood uses simple images such as the “forest,” “desert,” “unpainted stairs,” and “fire” to refer to the reality of marriage, but yet, she delivers an optimistic message about the unstable relationship or problems between the newlyweds by showing hopeful interpretations. Therefore, the poem implies the marriage is like building a house because it starts with very simple things, but as times goes by, couple can learn how to deal with all problems and maintains a happy marriage.
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.
Throughout history, the story of womankind has evolved from struggles to achievements, while some aspects of the lives of women have never changed. Poet Dorianne Laux writes about the female condition, and women’s desire to be married and to have a home and children. She also seems to identify through her poetry with the idea that women tend to idealize the concept of marriage and settling down and she uses her poetry to reach out to the reader who may have similar idyllic views of marriage or the married lifestyle. Though Dorianne Laux’s poem “Bird” reads very simply, it is actually a metaphor for an aspect of this female condition.
In “The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the unnamed female protagonist is going through a rough time in her life. (For now on, this paper will refer to this unnamed character as the “the narrator in ‘Wall-paper,’” short for “The Yellow Wall-paper. The narrator is confined to room to a room with strange wall-paper. This odd wall-paper seems to symbolize the complexity and confusion in her life. In “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard must also deal with conflict as she must deal with the death of her spouse. At first there is grief, but then there is the recognition that she will be free. The institute of marriage ties the two heroines of these two short stories together. Like typical young women of the late 19th century, they were married, and during the course of their lives, they were expected to stay married. Unlike today where divorce is commonplace, marriage was a very holy bond and divorce was taboo. This tight bond of marriage caused tension in these two characters.
Martineau clearly had a strong political agenda in writing this story, however in doing so, she addresses the fundamental difference she sees in the roles of responsibility in marriage. In her mind, the husband and the wife have clearly defined roles, not so much along lines of production, but rather in terms of the household. That which is in the household, whether it is the domestic duties or financial responsibility, falls to the wife while it is the husband who is responsible for the income stream.
“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.
Even with the pain of bearing children, raising them, doing household and even farm chores, their efforts have never been truly appreciated. Mrs. Wright was “…real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid—and fluttery…” as Mrs. Hale, her neighbor, describes her (22). This would all soon change after her wedding day. With Mr. Wright’s insipid character and lack of patience of any joyous sound, Mrs. Wright’s spirit dwindled to nothing. It seems she spent hours at a time focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for the only life there was in the house, her canary. Even when Mr. Hale offered to get a party telephone, Mr. Wright responded, “…folks talk too much anyway…”(5). This silence he preferred also applied to his spouse. There were no hugs given out much less a smile. He failed to give her even the most minimal sing of appreciation much less the emotional warmth she hungered for.
Where there is a strengthening of the idea of love and companionship (Briggs, 2016b). That marriage should be based on friendship and a more intimate type of love. The capable women who were able to succeed in a “precarious male venture,” (Sleeper-Smith, 2000, p.440) that Sleeper-Smith presents contradicts the ideal women of the 19th century as being nurturing, gentle and in need of protection and support (Briggs, 2016b). Which reinforced the patriarchal model of marriage that native women worked hard to
The story starts out with a hysterical.woman who is overprotected by her loving husband, John. She is taken to a summer home to recover from a nervous condition. However, in this story, the house is not her own and she does not want to be in it. She declares it is “haunted” and “that there is something queer about it” (The Yellow Wall-Paper. 160). Although she acknowledges the beauty of the house and especially what surrounds it, she constantly goes back to her feeling that there is something strange about the house. It is not a symbol of security for the domestic activities, it seems like the facilitates her release, accommodating her, her writing and her thoughts, she is told to rest and sleep, she is not even allow to write. “ I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”(162). This shows how controlling John is over her as a husband and doctor. She is absolutely forbidden to work until she is well again. Here John seems to be more of a father than a husband, a man of the house. John acts as the dominant person in the marriage; a sign of typical middle class, family arrangement.
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
While it has traditionally been men who have attached the "ball and chain" philosophy to marriage, Kate Chopin gave readers a woman’s view of how repressive and confining marriage can be for a woman, both spiritually and sexually. While many of her works incorporated the notion of women as repressed beings ready to erupt into a sexual a hurricane, none were as tempestuous as The Storm.
Margaret Atwood is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and short story writer. With such a variety of works in different types of writing, it is difficult to grasp every aspect of Atwood's purpose of writing. A comparative analysis of Rape Fantasies reveals the Atwood's writing is varied in many ways yet soundly consistent especially when comparing a particular set of writing such as a group of her other short stories. Atwood's background plays a large part in her writing. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1913. Her father was an entomologist, so she spent much of her childhood in the wilderness and other various urban places around Canada. Throughout her life, she lived in numerous Canadian residences as well as several towns in the United States. She has also lived in England, France, Italy and Germany. With this extensive background, Atwood displays a vast knowledge of the world around her, although large portions of her writing are based on Canadian settings. As a young girl, she started reading many books and even writing poems and comics. After deciding that she wanted to become a writer, Atwood attended the University of Toronto and earned her bachelor's degree in 1961. Following this, she went on to receiver her master's degree from Harvard University.
All readers will read and interpret this story in their own way based on their life and their knowledge of marriage. One thing that is indisputable is the emotions which carry through all people and the empowerment in which marriage has on these inspirations. In life love can renew one spirit as well as kill the passion of a person.
Wilde’s view on marriage is known through the characters. For example, Lane insinuates that marriage is boring by stating that the wine is better in the hous...
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
Within these marriages, readers get a sense of how education plays an important role in a successful marriage, as this fulfills both of their dreams of personal identity. Although women in the nineteenth century were viewed to be superior wives and mothers, manage the household, and perform domestic tasks, it was important for women to become educated as “an education was supposed to enable these girls to become successful women in society” (Leigh 117). Women were not meant to be “trained” in some way to become good wives, but needed to be formally educated in order to be a successful wife and