ipl-logo

Motherhood In Paul Auster's The Locked Room

1097 Words5 Pages

“The Natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your universe. You relinquish that position to your children” Jessica Lange. When a child is born, so is a mother. Some children require their mothers to be there at every waking moment but others learn to stand on their own early on in life. In the Story The Locked Room, by Paul Auster, Jane Fanshawe is introduced as a manipulative cold-hearted woman with sinister intentions, but societal pressures reveals this malicious woman to be a vulnerable mother. In the beginning, we meet Jane Fanshawe a widowed woman that is well in her fifties. She lives in solitude due to her daughter emission in a mental institution, and her son’s disappearance. …show more content…

She was upset that Fanshawe had given the present to his friend Tommy so he would have a gift for the birthday boy. It seemed like she was more concerned about her own reputation then her son’s good deed. Hester Vair stated in Work and Motherhood “When women respond to social situations, they put a higher priority on the effect action will have on the people involved than they do on universal rules of behavior”(Page 63). Women have been taught that their image mean everything, they always have to look, talk, and behave in a socially acceptable way. They have to look at the big picture meaning that their behavior will reflect how society will treat them. This has followed them into the stage of motherhood because they believe that their children are the products of their teaching. So a bad child would mean a bad mother. Jane was so fixated to meet the standards of society that she took it out on her son by getting angry at him. Fanshawe’s action may have been out of good intention but that wasn’t what the other mother saw. They saw a kid showing up to a birthday party without a present. Then these ladies would link Fanshawe’s behavior to the mother that did not raise him with good …show more content…

Even though Fanshawe wasn’t actually dead he was to her because he would never listen to Jane or refer to her in his letter. She wasn’t able to cope with the loss of Fanshawe, so she looks for someone like him. Lorena Olivas wrote “Relationships with the context of continuing bond theory can take the form of what is known as active inner representation of the deceased, which may include memories, feeling, and behavior” (page 40). Jane was desperate to find the love that Fanshawe didn’t give to her because he was gone. When she rekindled her relationship with the narrator she was reminiscing her past and found these lost feelings in him. It wasn’t that she was trying to manipulate the narrator to have sex with him but rather she was trying to find the love of Fanshawe within his best friend. The narrator was the inner representation of Fanshawe because he knew everything about him, so sleeping with him was the only way that Jane could be closer to her

Show More
Related
914 Words | 4 Pages

By doing so she is coming across as an affectionate and understanding parent, who wants their child to recognize their full potential. In another example she states, “It will be expected of you my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, you improvement should bear some proportion to your advantages” (21-24). She is reminding

Read More
150 Words | 1 Pages

Ultimately, as a woman, she is a limited agent and can only do so much indecently. Jane breaks off from the domestic sphere to which she is confined

Read More
234 Words | 1 Pages

Her pride and her claim over the children is motivated by her envy of their stauts in society. The

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Jane being ignored is a reason why she has some mental issues. She feels ashamed of what she is feeling and society makes it hard for her to want to talk about this with anyone. Not being able to talk about it, causes Jane’s depression to get worse with

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

In a family there are many different roles; there's the role of the mother, the father, the child, the grandparents, then there’s the brothers and sisters. Every single one of those roles has different responsibilities. The father, according to most of society, is supposed to be the breadwinner for the family. However, nowadays the mother is actually quite capable of being the breadwinner just as much of as the father. As they work to show their children what it is to be an adult they are teaching them as well on how to be an active member of society.

Read More
3174 Words | 13 Pages

It is ironic that Jane is seen as the guilty party in the incident with John Reed because John started the fight when he slapped Jane. Then when John’s sisters, Eliza and Georgina, go to “tattle tale” on Jane, their mother blames Jane for the whole situation. Jane compares John to a “murderer,” “slave-driver,” and “Roman Emperors” (Bronte 9). During this comparison, she is implying that he is a very cruel and awful person. That he would beat her and boss her around.

Read More
754 Words | 4 Pages

As a photographer myself, the theory of punctum is not unknown to me; however, the application of the concept of punctum towards the perfomativity of a photograph is unchartered territory. The photograph I chose to analyze is Dorothea Lange’s renowned portrait Migrant Mother, which is a Great Depression-era photograph featuring a migrant farmer, and is among the most famous photographs from this turbulent chapter of American history. The raw emotion in the mother’s face, paired with her body language and grimy appearance, captivates viewers; however, it is not the mother that makes this image so powerful to me, but rather, the turned away children framing their mother. This detail adds a new dimension to the portrait for me.

Read More
178 Words | 1 Pages

John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick presents Alexandra, Sukie, and Jane in a fairly unsympathetic manner. From making fun of Greta Neff’s accent and appearance (26), with the novel’s narrator later acknowledging that “her accent was never as bad as the people poking fun of it would have had you believe” (289), to their lack of interest in their children, such as when they talk about how they must “either go home to make their suppers or at least phone the house to put the oldest daughter in charge” (102) but do not actually do so, to Alexandra’s murder of the squirrel (220), which occurs not as part of a spell or for a greater purpose but just because Alexandra can, the three women appear cruel and selfish. What effect might this unflattering

Read More
1982 Words | 8 Pages

When the family learn that Eric is the father of Eva Smith’s unborn child, both parents are shocked; they could never have imagined that their son would have got himself involved with a working class girl in this way. However, as soon as they learn from Gerald that the Inspector isn’t real, they are happy to return to the way things were, feeling confident in the knowledge that Eric’s actions won’t damage their reputation. In this sense, they display double standards. Arthur Birling was highly critical of Eva Smith for stepping out of line in asking for a pay rise, yet seems happy to ignore and forget the irresponsible behaviour of his son. Sybil looks down on ‘girls of that class’ for getting themselves into difficult situations, yet is also happy to return to the celebratory mood in spite of the fact that it was her own son who contributed to Eva Smith’s situation.

Read More
648 Words | 3 Pages

The dual roles however prevent him from fully understanding Jane. Due to his authority, he prevents Jane from expressing her feelings. He continuously condescends her, calling her a “blessed little goose” and “little girl”, similar to Rochester patronizing Antoinette. It is clear that he does not understand Jane’s true identity because he only sees the surface of her personality. Their relationship conclusively destroys Jane due to John dehumanizing

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

In the beginning, she is deprived of education, love and appreciation of her presence which ultimately is her prime reasoning of taking off to be successful. Her experience at Gateshead was nothing more than miserable, she fought for what she needed and grew out of her comfort zone to stick up for herself. The strict rules and limits to freedom was not something Jane could handle for much longer, starting with the false accusations said by Brocklehurst of Jane. Brocklehurst is one of the many obstacles Jane fights to become happy and successful. She did not let him control how she envisioned her future life, rather she became even more passionate to prove how much of a cruel master he was.

Read More
900 Words | 4 Pages

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there really is nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?” (Gilman 317) Confined in the upstairs bedroom, left to just her thoughts and shreds of grotesque yet enchanting wallpaper, Jane begins to slip into a downward spiral of insanity and depression. Gilman in turn uses this setting of the dilapidated nursery in order to express the extent of solitude Jane experiences when left alone that leads to her mental instability. Not only is Jane separated from the main floor of the house, the home is located in the country, miles from any town or society. Gilman does this in order to express the lack of social interaction Jane experiences in general, and on a regular basis.

Read More
580 Words | 3 Pages

Any mother would feel like a bad mother after all, so did Daisy, Donny’s mom. “She had always told Donny he had talent, was smart, was good with his hands” (Tyler 288). Daisy was always trying to cheer her son up, but he was way too impulsive to understand what she truly means. Then Daisy realized that while she was so preoccupied with Donny’s problems, she forgot about her youngest daughter. “She couldn’t give as much attention to Donny's younger sister” (Tyler 287).

Read More
933 Words | 4 Pages

Charlotte Brontë´s novel Jane Eyre is considered one of Britain´s most classical literary work. The story consists of a hybrid of three genres, the Gothic novel, the Romance novel and the Bildungsroman and many critics have praised the novel. Though, the novel got a great deal of good criticism in contemporary time, its immediate reception was controversial. The story plays out during the Victorian period in Britain where the social norms were strict and there was a big gap of equality between the genders. This essay will analyse how the gender roles are portrayed and if they are modern or traditional.

Read More
1236 Words | 5 Pages

A mother either gives her all to her children or she is neglectful and a selfish parent. Mothers get lumped into categories which often dehumanizes them. Because

Read More

More about Motherhood In Paul Auster's The Locked Room

Related Topics

Open Document