Similarly, in Rebecca, the female protagonist, Mrs. de Winter, endures great hardships because of Mrs. Danvers’ loyalty to Maxim de Winter’s deceased first wife, Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers was the head maid of the Manderley mansion when Maxim was married to Rebecca. Mrs. de Winter second guesses her marriage to Maxim and fears that he is still in love with Rebecca. She believes this and even goes on to think: Maxim was not in love with me, he had never loved me …What I had thought was love for me, for myself as a person, was not love. It was just that he was a man, and I was his wife and was young, and he was lonely. He did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca. He still thought about Rebecca. He would never love me because of Rebecca. (Rebecca 236-237) Mrs. de Winter …show more content…
thinks that this is the truth because of all the negative and deceitful thoughts that Mrs. Danvers has put into her head. Mrs. Danvers is so faithful towards the late Rebecca that she is willing to do anything to the protagonist so that she will never be able to truly replace Rebecca in the Manderley mansion as Maxim de Winter’s wife.
Literary critic, Liz Hoggard, agrees that Mrs. Danvers is loyal to Rebecca, stating that, “Danvers is clearly in love with her dead mistress and keeps her room a shrine” (Hoggard). Hoggard connects Mrs. de Winter’s self-consciousness with Mrs. Danvers’ cruel intentions and says that, “The heroine begins to doubt Maxim's affections. How could he have ever fallen in love with someone as plain and clumsy as her? Surely she is just a form of pet?” (Hoggard). As a result, Mrs. de Winter has become insecure and feels as though she will never be able to live up to the expectations that have been set for her. Mrs. Danvers completely destroys Mrs. de Winter’s confidence and shatters her happiness. Mrs. de Winter feels like an unwelcome stranger in her own home, especially after Mrs. Danvers tells her everything was better before she arrived and that she is not wanted at Manderley. Mrs. Danvers encourages the protagonist by saying, “Why don’t you go? We none of us want you. He doesn’t want you, he never did. … Don’t be afraid …There’s not much for you to live for, is there? Why don’t you jump now and have done with it? Then you
won’t be unhappy anymore” (Rebecca 250). Mrs. de Winter is pushed to her breaking point due to this confrontation and contemplates committing suicide. She faces a decision: to kill herself or to survive; to be happy or to be unhappy. Mrs. Danvers is trying to force Mrs. de Winter out of the mansion and out of her role as Maxim’s wife using whatever means she deems necessary. The head maid does not think or even seem to care about what kind of harm or pain she inflicts on Mrs. de Winter, as long as it means Rebecca will not be replaced. Mrs. Danvers is so loyal to the dead Rebecca that she uses her relationship with Maxim and her power as the head maid to try and manipulate Mrs. de Winter into making her feel so unwanted and unloved that she nearly commits suicide.
That is he cannot forsake his parents’ farm or has a way out to leave his parents he is stuck with them. Hollis experiences challenges in solitude since he has no spouse or sweetheart, drinking mates, and hunting friends. Therefore, his inadequacy triggers the idea of a brutal ending solution oriented at two feminized characters: mentally ill, an elderly lady and a frail, juvenile former patriarch. Socially disengaged, a maverick in his own particular and forced to play the role of nursemaid, Hollis, as well, has been feminized. His sibling outranks him by uprightness of his adherence to normative. Others have rights to the life of Hollis that he himself cannot guarantee. He reacts by pondering about murder, that, to a hunter, for example, he, provides a quick and common type of energy. Pancake finishes up "First Day of Winter" without revealing the destiny of Hollis or his
In regards to many works of classic literature, actress Rebecca Hall once said “It's not often you get female characters who don't fit into a box." Hall is saying in this quote that all women in classic literature are boring, stereotypical, and all fit into the same “box”; however, in the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel, the female characters are but the opposite. Marguerite and the Comtesse are interesting because they are never forced into a box.
to dancing round a fire in the woods but she says that it was not
Mrs. Danvers bond with the late Mrs. De Winter is not just a typical servant/mistress relationship, nor even friendship; it is stronger and more passionate than mere companionship. In Chapter Fourteen when Mrs. Danvers finds the narrator looking in Rebecca’s room, she demonstrates adoration for everything that was Rebecca’s: “That was her bed.
Lydia Velishek Mr. Stensrud Honors: US Literature & Composition 10 October 2017 Title Here It is clear that Abigail Williams is portrayed as the antagonist in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, taking place in the late 1600s in Salem, Massachusetts and based on the witch-trials therein. She serves as a catalyst for the witch trials by falsely accusing innocent townspeople with the intent of maintaining the position of power she gains from them. Due to the transparency of her actions, Abigail’s ulterior motives are also distinguishable.
Winter tries to do whatever she can to take care of her sister, help her mother, get her father free and everything back to the way that it use to be. Everything seems to go wrong after that happens and Winter is only worried about herself from then on. The characters in this novel all represent individuals in every urban slum in America from the lords to the workers, from the young children growing up fast in the culture of violence and moral decay
There, up high on her throne, manipulating them as game pieces on a chessboard, their fate will be decided by her; their lives are used to advantage her purposes. Before the victim is trapped, they are charmed by the seemingly heartless fiend. Then, at that point without knowing, deluded into being her follower. In the novel Rebecca, the late Mrs. de Winter, or Rebecca, had shown some qualities that could classify her as a sociopath. Throughout the novel, there are small clues that whisper the truth; they are revealed to have been hints for Rebecca’s true nature. Rebecca shows essential characteristics that expose her sociopathic disposition, such as, being manipulative and lacking the ability to feel remorse.
Abigail Williams is manipulative and wants everything to go her way. She is the main character and causes trouble everywhere she goes. The Salem Witch Trials is about hearings and prosecutions of people who were accused of witchcraft. In The Crucible Abigail is a no good villain. Abigail first commits adultery with Elizabeth’s husband. Later on Abigail begins to accuse innocent people of doing witchcraft which causes them to die. Abigail Williams uses the Salem Witch Trials to put out all the resentment she has toward everyone.
How Arthur Miller Establishes the Character and Motivation of Abigail Williams in Act One and How She is Not to be Trusted
Abigail Williams is the troubled niece of Reverend Parris of Salem. She is an orphan; made so by brutal natives who killed her parents before her very eyes. The witch-hunt begins when Abigail is at the age of seventeen. She has a large role in this novel, especially on these dark events and also her relationship with John Proctor.
“Nothing is hidden that won’t be exposed. Nor is anything concealed that won’t be made known and brought to the light” (Luke 8:17 CEB). The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is a page turner with new problems and more drama on every page. In this emotional story a town in Salem, Massachusetts is undergoing a series of trials to vilify the civilians who were accused of witchcraft. The accusations were based on animosity and jealousy from a group of ill advised girls. There was one girl who was considered the leader of this wretched cause, her name was Abigail Williams. She was a very manipulative and petty girl. She abused her power that she obtained over the group of followers she had managed to maintain. Abigail appears to have no conception of how to treat others or how to reasonably work things out. She tends to resort directly to violence and threats knowing that the people around
Abigail Williams was the most courageous character in The Crucible, because she did many things that were against Salem's ideology. “...for she will not sit so close to something so close to something soiled” (Miller 11). That quote was Reverend Parris to his niece, Abigail Williams. She was viewed as a heathen and rejected socially within the parish. She was very courageous because she pushed past her status and made change within Salem to get what she wanted.
Janet Alderman in her essay "'Man and Wife Is One Flesh': Hamlet and the Confrontation with the Maternal Body" embraces the psychoanalytic tradition of Freud and Lacan in order to reveal the quadruple-angled relationship of the Hamlet monarchy. Focusing primarily on the relationship between Gertrude and her son, Hamlet, Alderman attempts to recast the drama as a charged portrait of Oedipal disillusionment and Lacanian sexual-abnegation. Appropriately, sexuality provides the impetus for Alderman's argument; toying with sex roles and the power of sexuality over family dynamics and identity, she craftily reveals Hamlet to be a son's battle for his mother's purity, a covetous attempt to regain a sense of sexual normalcy. Alderman's casts Gertrude as a type of catch-all, garden-of-Eden, original-sin embodiment, who initiates the fall of the paternal and recreates the maternal "body as an enclosed garden newly breached" (Adelman 263). Adelman frequently refers to Hamlet Sr. and Claudius as "collapsing" into a single paternal figure; both incite and fall prey to Gertrude's sexuality. Hamlet functions in Alderman's analysis as the crusader fighting for his mother's "benign maternal presence" (278) and the conqueror repressing his mother's sexual appetite, her "sexualized maternal body" (271).
"…[Mrs. Dubose] had her own views about things, a lot different from mine… I wanted you to see something about her -- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what…" (112). This is said by Atticus after Jem asks why Atticus makes him read to her. Atticus explains to Jem that Mrs. Dubose is a very courageous person and has the heart of a champion. And in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Mrs. Dubose symbolizes a strong mind, the will and determination to never give up, and audacity.
In the book, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, there exist a big emphasis on social class and position during the time of this story. When we are introduced to the main character of the story, the narrator, we are right away exposed to a society in which different privileges are bestowed upon various groups. Social place, along with the ever present factor of power and money are evident throughout the story to show how lower to middle class groups were treated and mislead by people on a higher level in society. When we are introduced to the narrator, we are told that she is traveling with an old American woman; vulgar, gossipy, and wealthy, Mrs. Van Hopper travels across Europe, but her travels are lonely and require an employee that gives her warm company. This simple companion (the narrator) is shy and self-conscious, and comes from a lower-middle class background which sets up perfect for a rich man to sweep her off her feet. The narrator faced difficulties adapting to first, the Monte Carlo aristocratic environment, and second, to her new found position as Mrs. De Winter, the new found mistress of Manderley.