In her essay, Karen Rowe discusses the importance and significance of the female voice in a story. The impact of a woman voicing her story through any means is great on the women in the story and women reading it. In Thirteen Reasons Why and Wuthering Heights, the stories are greatly centralized around the main female character. In Hannah’s case, she tells her own story. In Wuthering Heights, Nelly is telling the story of Catherine and Heathcliff to Lockwood. These stories do have something major in common; there is an incredible lack of a motherly figure in the stories. With that in mind, it becomes easy to relate the two stories to the variations of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Is there a significance to this missing mother? The absence of a motherly figure can ultimately be a contributing factor of the poor decisions of each of the characters and their voice. While many authors desire for the female character to be independent and morally sound, the character often appears broken and disconnected from those around her, especially her mother. The female voice in a story is not only affect by the character herself but the environment she is in. A woman in her environment …show more content…
In these stories, whether it is a young girl or a woman grown, all of them are told by females. This may be the authors’ attempt to fill the gap of a mother. Each woman is seen as a strong-willed woman who can stand to be on her own and make her own decisions; at least, that is what most people in society want to believe. In all reality, these women would have been stronger and smarter if they had a mother to protect and help them. In “Little Red Riding Hood” and its variants, Red Riding Hood may have not even been sent out into the woods on her own if she had a true, realistic motherly figure. Hannah’s death could have been prevented and Catherine’s decisions could have been more thought
From my perspective, I believe that both stories show us that no matter what bad situation you are in there is always a solution to be happy. I can see love, respect and strong woman the authors is talking about, that they choose to give a better life to their kids. The similarities that I have found in these two stories are basically the love of a mother towards their children and teach them that even if you love someone and that person is hurting you, you need to move on to provide a better life.
Thought these stories are somewhat similar, their differences greatly outweigh them, causing the feelings of the viewer to be completely different. The development of the character’s perspective, the provisions received from God, and the theme of family ties beating the despair in times of trouble are all but a few of the differences that separate these two
We will analyse, in this essay, the differences as well as the similarities which exist between Jane Eyre and Incidents in the life of a slave girl written by herself. We will see that they differ in terms of genre, the period of history in which they find themselves, the way the characters are presented and so forth. However, they share some of the main values concerning womanhood, race and some other aspects of life which they both treat in different ways and yet they do so in a specific aim. Charlotte Brontë and Harriet Jacobs present to us two texts which are both based in totally opposite moments in history. While many differences exist between the two texts, they have several aspects in common.
Another item that is extremely important in both stories is the use and importance of fate. Both characters rely on their fates for assistance and for achieving
Comparative Essay Thesis- Throughout both of these stories, there are ideas and elements that are shared between the two, such as similar themes, and the same point of view. However, there are also disparities that are prevalent within the stories, like the setting and how much the reader knows. Both of these stories describe the similar narrative of a wife murdering her husband, due to him treating her bad. This sets up a theme of sympathy, or understanding for the killer in both stories, as they only kill them because they were treated so badly by their husbands.
Octavia Butler is an Afrofuturist, science fiction author who writes many dystopian stories that allude to questions about gender, social structures, and an individual’s ability to control her body and sexuality. When people think of speculative and science fiction they tend to think of nerdy white men writing stories about space and light sabers, but Octavia Butler challenges this stereotype herself by being one of the few African American women in this genre. In Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction short story “Speech Sounds” there is a reversal of gender roles and a strong idea of feminism that is portrayed through the main character Rye. There is also the use of simile and metaphor to help point out flaws in the social structure of the story and the world of the reader.
The author’s choice of words and how they use these words helps to build the overall tone. The authors’ tone in both short stories relates and shows examples of good and bad parenting through literary devices, word choice, and theme. Literary devices that are used
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates a quizzical protagonist, Offred, in a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are only a mere vessel for child birth. Every month during Offred’s menstrual cycle her Commander, Fred, and his wife Serena Joy perform detached intercourse while Serena holds Offred’s hands. The handmaids of the Republic of Gilead are not allowed to use their mind for knowledge nor take part in formal society. They are but the vacuous-minded property to their Commanders and their infertile wives. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred discloses the day to day moments and her commicalOffred had once lived in a world where she was her own person with a job and a home with a family of her own but now she lives under unfortunate circumstances that disable her from being a true, soulful human.
The relationships defined in The Field of Life and Death were not intimate as the traditional values implied. Moreover, the relationship between mother and children is not as intimate as implied by traditional value. Considering Golden Bough and her mother’s relation, as the narrator indicates “she loved her daughter, but when the girl ruined some vegetables, she directed her love toward the vegetables” We cannot deny that Golden Bough’s mother cares her daughter, but not as much as other material things like vegetables and money (in Chapter 14, Golden Bough earned quite a few money in the city, her mother encourages her to go back immediately in order to earn even more without caring what she is doing). Motherhood is hardly seen in this novella. Hitherto, the portrayal of these female characters has deconstructed the traditional male-centered
The two stories 'Little Red Riding Hood ' and 'Little Red Cap ' have many significant similarities and differences alike. The most notable similarity is the moral ending that characterizes both stories with each having a slight twist. The two tales stories are of a girl who loses her innocence as she moves through the segments of life; childhood through adulthood. While the same has many notable similarities in terms of theme and style, it is easy to point out the difference in the way women are treated in the two stories. In the French version of the tale, the little girl was eaten but not rescued while in German version talks of her rescue, which accentuates the cultural differences in the two stories (Grimm et al. 31).
Similarly, Disney’s Cinderella presents a cruel and ambitious stepmother who attempts to arrange marriages for her ugly, foolish, and somewhat comical daughters. In the film, we see their miserable attempt to sing opera, (supposedly in order to appear more feminine) as the mother proudly oversees. In one of the last scenes, she desperately urges them to make the glass slipper fit, and while she doesn’t downright tell them to cut off their toes or heels as in the original (Grimm 119), the comic scene in itself seems to have a subtle layer of tragedy. While these examples prove that female ugliness in fairy tales and their adaptations corresponds to wickedness, and the latter is equivalent to ill-temper, the question of female independence still
The male antagonists throughout the evolution of Little Red Riding Hood interpret self-imbalance within a school-age child as well as the significance of a reverse gender role model during the stage. Stepping out the protection and all the restriction beneath the single female parental image, the presence of the opposite gender profoundly enchants preschool-age girls. Wolves, under Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Little Red Cap” written in 1857, reveal the naive bourgeois girl pays for her foolishness
The time when this story took place was a time when women were viewed as second class citizens. Mothers had traditional roles, which usually left them in the house, while men also had their roles, outside of the
Response to Little Red Riding Hood The Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale that was originally written by the French writer Charles Perrault in 1697. Over time the story was re-written by various other writers like Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, James Thurber and Roald Dahlover. As each version of the story was re-written, the treatment of female roles have changed by progressing towards a more feminist viewpoint.
Feminist literary criticism’s primary argument is that female characters have always been presented from a male’s viewpoint. According to Connell, in most literary works, female characters often play minor roles which emphasize their domestic roles, subservience and physical beauty while males are always the protagonists who are strong, heroic and dominant (qtd. in Woloshyn et al.150). This means that the women are perceived as weak and are supposed to be under the control of men. Gill and Sellers say that feminist literary criticism’s approach involves identifying with female characters in order to challenge any male centred outlook.