Without the constraint of fear holding her back, Sophie also learns how to speak her mind and assert herself into a conversation where before she often thought, “’What made me think I wanted life to be interesting?’” (Jones 18). As an old woman she demands respect and authority. When she comes upon the castle herself, she demands the castle to “Stop!” so she can enter and, “The castle obediently came to a rumbling, grinding halt about fifty feet uphill from her” (Jones 46). Sophie’s agency as an old woman, as Gili Bar-Hillel in “Of Moving Castles and Flying Houses: The Wizard of Oz and Howl’s Moving Castle as Interconnected Milestones in Children’s Fantasy Literature,” explains is “…a form which she finds greater freedom and power than afforded …show more content…
Jones depends on magic as a way to measure and explore Sophie’s agency, which climaxes in her ability to change back to a young woman. At the beginning of the text, when Sophie is unaware of her power she is hesitant and obedient. Jones chooses to slowly build toward the revelation of Sophie’s power – talking hats into being married off, Turniphead coming to life, among other things – before her power is revealed. Sophie’s power, and ultimately the way she breaks her own curse is Sophie’s agency coming into full fruition. Magic becomes a part of Sophie’s identity, and she has been allowed to choose the situations and direction that enabled her to discover that part of herself. Even though, Sophie resists the fact that she is a witch, often joking about it with Michael and Howl to scare the local patrons, but throughout there is an underlying sense of truth. Sophie knows something is up with her with the stick, the flowers, but Mrs. Pendragon gives Sophie’s power a name: “It brings life to things, such as that stick in your hand…I think you would not find it too hard to break that contract” (Jones 236). By giving her gift a name, it becomes more tangible. Sophie knows that she has the power to choose the way her life goes, she is aware of what she has done in the past and knows she can use her gifts to fulfill her own desires. She has the power on her own to break the contract between Howl and Calcifer, which she knew already, and break the curse on herself. This power structure has shifted since the beginning of the book when Sophie didn’t accept any authority or make decisions for herself. Sophie learns through magic to accept not only her place and her own beauty, but she must accept the fact that being a witch, and understanding power, is now a part of her
The Wizard of Oz, perhaps America’s favorite children’s story, is also an informed remark on the late 1800’s Populist Movement. The movie, starring Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, and Ray Bolgr, is based on L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The novel tells the story of a young girl named Dorothy and her dog, who are whisked away in her house by a twister, to the magical Land of Oz. Determined to find a way back home, Dorothy travels along the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Along the way, Dorothy meets a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion. Additionally, she encounters with Glenda the Good Witch, the munchkins, and The Wicked Witch of the West, and her flying monkeys. This
In contrast, syntax provides a new perspective to the narrator s behavior as sentence structure draws attention to her erratic behavior. By her last entry, the narrator s sentences have become short and simple. Paragraphs 227 through 238 contain few adjectives resulting in limited descriptions yet her short sentences emphasize her actions providing plenty of imagery. The syntax quickly pulls the reader through the end as the narrator reaches an end to her madness.
The story begins with the narrator’s description of the physically confining elements surrounding her. The setting is cast in an isolated colonial mansion, set back from the road and three miles from the village (674). The property contains hedges that surround the garden, walls that surround the mansion, and locked gates that guarantee seclusion. Even the connected garden represents confinement, with box-bordered paths and grape covered arbors. This image of isolation continues in the mansion. Although she prefers the downstairs room with roses all over the windows that opened on the piazza the narrator finds herself consigned to an out of the way dungeon-like nursery on the second floor. "The windows in the nursery provide views of the garden, arbors, bushes, and trees”(674). These views reinforce isolationism since, the beauty can be seen from the room but not touched or experienced. There is a gate at the head of the stairs, presumably to keep children contained in their play area of the upstairs with the nursery. Additionally, the bed is immoveable " I lie here on this great immovable bed- it is nailed down, I believe-and follow that pattern about by the hour" (678). It is here in this position of physical confinement that the narrator secretly describes her descent into madness.
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blond on Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Chatto & Windus, 1994. Print.
Angela Carter was a writer in the 1970s during the third wave of feminism that influenced and encouraged personal and social views in her writing. This is demonstrated through her own interpretation of fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber. She combines realism and fantasy to create ‘magic realism’ whilst also challenging conventions of stereotypical gender roles.
Among the characters is Wilbur and Charlotte. Wilbur had Character vs. Self conflict concerning friendship as she thinks of Charlotte, “I’ve got a new friend, all right! But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, and bloodthirsty-everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is beautiful and, of course, smart?” Such thoughts of Wilbur indicate that he had fears and doubt on whether to accept Charlotte as her friend (White 41). But Wilbur is helpless and needs friend to rely to save his life so to solve his problem, he tries to be like Charlotte so as to solve his conflict. Such an attempt is comprehensible to readers that Wilbur imitates Charlotte’s spinning of a web, so as to relate to a friend’s ability. Such mimicking is supposed to alleviate the lack of confidence friendship. As their story continue, Wilbur discover that his impression with Charlotte is wrong. Underneath Charlotte’s cruel exterior, she has kind heart and a loyal and true friend to the very
Faris, Wendy B. Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2004. 24 Sept. 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. 21
She continues in this sequel to talk about the abuse she faced and the dysfunction that surrounded her life as a child and as a teen, and the ‘empty space’ in which she lived in as a result. She talks about the multiple personalities she was exhibiting, the rebellious “Willie” and the kind “Carol”; as well as hearing noises and her sensory problems. In this book, the author puts more emphasis on the “consciousness” and “awareness” and how important that was for her therapeutic process. She could not just be on “auto-pilot” and act normal; the road to recovery was filled with self-awareness and the need to process all the pieces of the puzzle—often with the guidance and assistance of her therapist. She had a need to analyze the abstract concept of emotions as well as feelings and thoughts. Connecting with others who go through what she did was also integral to her
Warner, Maria, From the Beast to the Blonde: Fairy Tales and their Tellers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1994).
Social and internal dialogue is representative of the enculturation process that Laura and Miss Brill have been exposed to. Both of Mansfield’s short stories represent a binary: Laura’s realizations of...
The bringing together of Sophie and Martine does not improve the lives of either one of them. Their discomfort with each other is foreshadowed by the nightmares Sophie has of her mother before going to live with her in New York. In the nightmares Martine has "arms like two long hooks" (Danticat, p. 28, ch. 4) and is chasing her, trying to catch her. Sophie's nightmares of her mother resemble her mother's nightmares of her father. Despite their differences, they are bound together by the sa...
Blanche is a delusional character who creates life from her imagination to help her pass through the hardness of life. Blanche admits that living in fantasy is much better than living in reality. When she was talking to her lover “Mitch”, she admits that the world of fantasy is much kinder as she says, “I don't want realism. I want magic!” (Williams, 117). Blanche does not care if this magic is factual or not. The importance of magic to Blanche is that she has the choice to choose fantasy which allows her to believe in and hope for something better than harsh world. She is aware of that, making the world as attractive as sh...
In Sophie's sex phobia therapy group, Sophie is able to realize she is not the only person in the world with problems. Together, with the strength of the other woman and her own, Sophie is able to voice with conviction that she is a "beautiful woman with [a] strong body" (202). The group gives Sophie the self confidence she needs to feel good about herself and the strength to bravely admit who her abuser is. Each member of the group "wrote the names of [their] abusers in a pieces on a paper, raised it over a candle, and watched as the flames consumed it" (203). As Sophie got stronger, she no longer felt guilty about burning her mother's name. Through this procedure, Sophie is on...
The Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel” encourages women to subscribe to domestic roles. Through the tales of various female characters, “Rapunzel” teaches women to embrace their domesticity even at the risk and disadvantage of such a single-faceted lifestyle. The first female character is Rapunzel’s biological mother, who embodies the domestic women by relying on her husband and never leaving her house. Her husband encounters the enchantress in her own garden, who, though supernatural, cannot expand beyond the domestic realm. Moreover, Rapunzel, the heroine herself, willingly relegates her life to a life of stability, dependence, and ultimately, domesticity.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...