She is a college student living in New York and has a job as a fashion magazine editor. The story begins to take a turn when Esther’s mental health problems begin to surface. She feels as though she lacks the happiness that society expects from her and also that she expects from herself. She begins to compare herself to others. Her friend, Doreen, has a great social life and is constantly with her boyfriend.
Lucille Parkinson McCarthy, author of the article, “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum”, conducted an experiment that followed one student over a twenty-one month period, through three separate college classes to record his behavioral changes in response to each of the class’s differences in their writing expectations. The purpose was to provide both student and professor a better understanding of the difficulties a student faces while adjusting to the different social and academic settings of each class. McCarthy chose to enter her study without any sort of hypothesis, therefore allowing herself an opportunity to better understand how each writing assignment related to the class specifically and “what
In the novel, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, there is a young high school girl that is named Melinda, she has something to hide from people that she know and love but eventually she will reveal her dark secret. I believe that symbolism plays a major role in the novel because many of the symbols represent how Melinda sometimes acts at times. Throughout the novel, Unarmed is used to symbolize Rabbits, Prey, and Fear in relation to how Melinda develops. I believe that Rabbits represent Melinda as an unharming animal who can’t defend herself from problems in life. This symbol also represents Melinda in a way that she can’t fight back, all she can possibly do is hide like a rabbit in her closet or run away from Danger.
2) This extract is found in “The White Album” written by Joan Didion, who is the creator of many significant different literature pieces, both novels and essays. “The White Album” was published in 1979, and is the first and longest essay in the book. In this essay Joan Didion essentially uses a women as a connecting thread to describe what was happening in America at that time. I believe that the woman may even be herself to a certain extent, trying to externalize all her thoughts. What is perceived from the essay is that Didion was submerged into the focus of some big events that were happening in that year, not only as a journalist but also as a bystander and a normal Californian.
The Beat Generation of the 1950’s and early 1960’s encouraged a new lifestyle for young Americans striving for individualism and freedom, which included rock and roll music, long hair, relaxed style attire, vegetarianism, and experimenting with drugs (“Beat Movement”). Many young Americans of this era wanted to experiment with new social and cultural concepts, rebelling against “normal” American life. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, portrays the gruesomeness of conformity through the lives of patients in one of the asylum’s wards. The novel shows how the patients are confined to strict rules and limited freedom because of Nurse Ratched’s power.
2. Insanity One of the most important symbols of insanity in Sylvia Plath’s novel is the bell jar. Given the fact that this is also the title of the book, it is surprising to find that the bell jar only recurs at the beginning of chapter fifteen when Esther, after being ‘rescued’ from the city hospital, reflects on how indifferent she is to where exactly she is at the moment.
Symbolism is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character. In Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson uses literary devices to help the reader better understand Melinda’s personal changes and growth. Trees, lips, and coldness are all symbolically used to represent the changes of Melinda. Throughout the novel, trees play a big part in symbolizing Melinda. Melinda is constantly drawing and relating to trees in the book.
And just like in To Kill a Mockingbird those who do not fit into societies boxes are shamed and avoided by their families and former friends. The Handmaid 's tale conveys that society looks at people as expectations, measurements, and archetypes it causes people to be outcast unless they
Mental Illness affects an immense amount of individuals no matter their race, culture or age. It is everywhere we go, yet still an issue some choose to ignore; whether it is the person facing the illness or those around them. People handle their sickness in a variety of ways. Some by using violence as their only answer, others run away from their issue and majority choose to accept and make the best of it. After reading the novel The Secret Life of Bees, it would be easy to think that the main theme is discrimination or family, but in reality it is actually focused on the toll that mental illness takes on a family.
By creating characters in the novel who are excluded and labelled the author demonstrates how cruel society can be to people. The purpose of this essay is to show how the author reveals the experiences of marginalised characters in society. Joseph Davidson is an introverted, fourteen year old boy who feels that he is trapped within his own world of chaos, and he too is a marginalised character in the book. It is suggested by the author that other characters believe that Joseph’s mother smothers him too much and his father has
Ultimately resulting in her death. In Margaret Atwood’s short story, she asserts that being discriminated and isolated causes the narrator to have deep mental issues that lead to signs of depression through the protagonist’s unorthodox way of accepting her fate without any hesitation to prevent her life being taken away. In this story, the narrator has been lead to believe that she has no part in her community. Throughout her life, she has been isolated by her entire town even by those who she called family.
Shubkaran Kaur 100129968 Professor Crystal Hurdle English 103-02 March 18, 2018 Why Might the ‘The Bell Jar’ be Dubbed as Black/Dark Comedy? ‘The Bell Jar’ is a classic novel by Sylvia Plath which revolves around the character Esther Greenwood who falls into spiral of craziness and loses control of herself while she is in the pursuit of establishing her career. Her depression in the novel and struggle to explore herself not only makes the novel effortlessly interesting, intense and gloomy but also hilarious the same time.
Essay 1 Date Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird “To kill a Mockingbird” is a novel in which Harper Lee, the author, presents forth various themes among them the unheard theme of social molarity. Harper dramatically uses a distinctive language through Scout, who is the narrator of the story to bring out the difficulties faced by children living in the southern Alabama town of Maycomb. Harper has dramatically displayed use of bildungsroman throughout the story; this helped to give the story a unique touch of a child’s view to bring out a different type of humor and wit. It has also used to develop and thrive the theme of morality in the society.
Throughout this short story, Emily showcases several attributes of mental illness which is compounded from it already running in her family, to events in her life that may seem disturbing. Faulkner paints an eerie image of Emily and her surroundings which helps the reader to understand the state of her mental stability. By being withdrawn from society and being seen as an outsider, it seemed she was trapped in a world that did not understand her which made her seem full of delusions. Even though Emily seemed like she needed professional help she never received any psychiatric treatment. Although the community Emily lived in never thought she was crazy, they did think she was a bit off and this can be seen through their interactions with her.
Lamb to the Slaughter is an action packed short story about a wife who is let down by her husband and proceeds to kill him as an act of revenge. Obviously much more happens in this story consisting of humour, action, mystery and irony. Roald Dahl is a master of writing short stories in ways that attract readers, draw them into what is happening through using literary elements and universal themes to make the story relatable to the readers. In this story the main literary elements were foreshadowing, situation and dramatic irony, imagery and symbolism which really drew me in and kept me attached to the story. Literary elements are what make a story powerful and attracts readers to continue reading in the story and in this story they highlight the universal theme of Revenge and Betrayal.
