Analysis Of A Whole New Woman

My name is Fiona Chen and I am a senior in ERWC. “A Whole New Woman” by D.H. Allen was my favorite short story from the Short Story Unit. The intricate personalities of the characters, the thoughts that revolve in the characters’ minds, and the unexpected ending of the story were what appealed to me. The story was short and straight to the point which makes it easy to follow along. “A Whole New Woman” should be continued to be taught to students in the future because of its blatant display of direct and indirect characterization which makes it easy to understand and learn this literary element. The author explores the issue of human actions and behavior in order to reflect on how it affects an individual and those around them.

At the beginning

When Verna was drinking coffee in her kitchen, she read in the news that “Doreen Norris, fifty-four, of Green Grass Estates, had been accused of poisoning her husband of thirty years, Edward John Norris, by putting antifreeze in his mixed drink one night. When he became sick, she called an ambulance, and he died shortly afterward at Glenwood Memorial Hospital. Mrs. Norris claimed she never meant to kill her husband. ‘I just wanted to hurt him, like he hurt me’” (31). This quote demonstrates how hurt people hurt people. The characterization of Doreen shows how she developed trust issues and was traumatized due to the deception of her father and the pain she saw being caused to her mother. This unresolved mental damage can be seen as Doreen tries to maintain her marriage using methods as far as going through a physical transformation. However, Doreen’s trauma was immediately triggered once she received the anonymous letter informing her of Ted’s supposed affair. As a response to the incomprehensible pain that she was feeling, Doreen poisoned her husband and claims that she didn’t mean to kill Ted. But anyone with a clear mind would know that feeding antifreeze to anyone would cause their demise. Except, Doreen wasn’t thinking with a clear mind because the letter had already triggered her

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is worthy of being taught to future seniors because of its riveting descriptions and its efficacious use of irony and symbolism in showing the process of how one loses the ability to make rational decisions; this educates students of the psychological mind and helps with understanding humans better. This is shown in the narrator’s constant verification, to his readers, of his sanity while committing acts that are exclusive to madmen. It was also shown in his attempt at fooling and hiding, from the police officers, the murdering of the old man simply to betray himself in the end by revealing the corpse. The part of the story that was most stupefying and impressive was the incorporation of the old man’s vulture eye which symbolizes the ability to think rationally. The fact that the narrator was exhausting himself in his desperate attempts to annihilate the vulture’s eye showed how he gradually lost his ability to reason. “Dawn” is worthy of being taught to future seniors because of its meaningful ending that teaches how humans have the ability and power to make changes. Using the influence of our actions and behaviors we can initiate these altercations in ourselves, others, and the present. In