Jane Smiley Essays

In Shakespeare 's play, King Lear, it is brutally obvious that Lear is strongly disliked, or even hated by his two older daughters, Goneril and Regan. In the novel A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, Ginny’s and Rose’s hatred for their father doesn’t appear to be too over the top until the reasons they hate him so much are finally revealed. Both sets of sisters eventually end up retaliating against their fathers after they are given his land. Some may say that the daughters actions against their fathers

From Casting to Casting Away Gender: Cross-Gendering in Modern Shakespeare Performance The year 1660 marked an important juncture in the English theatre. Not only was monarchy restored in England but Charles II also allowed women to enter the stage. Thus, women replaced the young adolescent males who cross-dressed in order to portray the women characters in Shakespeare’s plays. Although, the cross-dressing motif might seem strange to some, this practice can be traced back to Ancient Greeks who did

Are all pretenses evil? In King Lear, William Shakespeare explores the theme of deception and its various kinds. Hungry for flattering words, King Lear tests the love of his three daughters by asking them to describe how much they love him. The winner would get the largest portion of his kingdom. Eager for land and power, Goneril and Regan try to do outdo each other in proving their love for Lear through empty declarations of love. On the contrary, Cordelia sees through the meaninglessness of speech

Lies and deceptions are the reason that King Lear is considered a tragedy story. Both families are destroyed by the family members themselves. Both King Lear’s family and the family of Earl of Gloucester are destroyed in very similar events. The main-plot of the play has King Lear and his three daughters Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia. The sub-plot however, has Gloucester and his two sons Edger and Edmund. Lear the dumb king, wanting to feel some affection, gives his daughters a love-test to measure

Throughout the two short stories, “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath,” author Geoffery Chaucer introduces a prominent theme of love to the readers. Although the word love connects to both of these stories, Chaucer portrays love in two entirely different ways. By showing the theme of love in multiple demeanors, Chaucer is allowing readers to be able to relate to his main argument in many different ways. In the ‘Knight’s Tale,” love is shown through nobility and passion; whereas, in the “The

Ginny awoke to the sound of shouting. She sat up and yawned. What could be going on this late? She wondered to herself. She rose to her feet, her eyes still half shut. Her feet, by themselves it seemed, began to walk her towards the banister. She crouched down and started to listen. “I will not do it! You cannot make me!” Blithe's unmistakable voice cried. “Now darling, you have not even met Evander,” Father's soft voice cooed. “I don't need to meet him! Evander Layton, Earl of Edric! He's sounds

such as in the beginning of The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley. The main character unknowingly tricks herself into thinking that just because she continues to get thrown from her horse, it will always hurt. Although this may be true physically, confiding in a close friend (one of her prized horses) helps boost her confidence.

In the excerpts from The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley and Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse by Anna Sewell, the authors both use first person point of view to tell the story, and learn something about themselves or life in general. In both stories the characters themselves tell their stories and how they feel, but yet they are different in many ways. Both excerpts show ways that the characters learn a lesson, but they do this very different from each other. Similarly, Both passages

Jane Smiley, born in Los Angeles California, she spent her childhood growing up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburban city in St. Louis, Smiley graduated from a Community School, and went to a private school in Missouri, John Burroughs School from grades 7-12. She held a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and literature at Vassar College in 1971. She earned a Master’s degree in Fine Arts in 1975, and in 1978 a PhD from the University of Iowa. While pushing herself towards achieving her doctorate degree

through A Thousand Acres In her novel A thousand Acres Jane Smiley tells a complex story of a family farm in Iowa. The lives of these characters are changed by dishonesty and betrayal. Through her use of detailed characterization of Ginny and Rose, Smiley emphasizes that uncovering dishonestly reveals hard truths. Ultimately, we see how the characters must face the pain of the truth to move on and grow for the better. Smiley develops Ginny's dynamic character as she faces facts from the

In A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, the mother of Ginny, Rose and Caroline is absent for most of the daughters’ lives. Their mother has died when they were young due to cancer. With their stereotypical female roles, Rose and Ginny had to take care of her mother when she was sick and when she passed away were left to take care their younger sister Caroline. Before their mother’s death Ginny explains to Jessie Clark her responsibilities during those difficult times: “Rose and I nursed her for two

The Catcher in the Rye is set around the 1950s and is narrated by a teenager named Holden Caulfield. Holden tells the whole story to therapist. The story take place over 3 days. The story begins at pence prep school in Pennsylvania. This is Holden’s forth school, He had to leave the other 3 schools. At Pence, he has failed all of his classes but English. He then received a notice that he is being expelled, but he is not scheduled to return home until Wednesday. He visits his elderly history teacher

Introduction The family is the basic unit of our society, according to Friedman. Families are made up of many individuals that each have their own personalities, values, and beliefs. Although there are differences within the family, the family can still be a functioning unit. In the family analysis, I will be assessing the Reyes family. The Reyes family migrated from the Philippines with their son many years ago. Once they reach America, they had their first and only daughter. In this paper, it

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank details approximately two years of the life a Jewish teenager during World War II. During much of the time period covered by her journal, Anne and her family are in hiding in an attempt to escape Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws and genocidal desires. Anne’s diary ends abruptly in August, 1944 when she and her family are taken into custody by the Germans and transported to concentration camps. Before that Anne writes a detailed journal which depicts are courageous

the reader did not know that the bit tasted bad and the straps were uncomfortable, he/she may assume that the bit was made for a custom fit for the horse and the mouthpiece tasted like strawberries. First, in The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley, a girl’s father has her ride and train horses even though she think the horses have feelings and don't like the gear and the training. Paragraph 10 states,”...I just took off the saddle, and the bridle, too, and I lay down in the grass and fell

Shakespeare 's play, King Lear, portrays Lear 's excursion to astuteness and humbleness before his unfortunate destruction. The novel, A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley, returns to this great catastrophe through an advanced understanding of Shakespeare 's King Lear. Like Lear surrendering his crown to his three little girls, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, Lawrence "Larry" Cook isolates his thousand sections of land of farmland amongst his three girls, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. A Thousand Acre 's particular

To Kill A Mockingbird - Literary Analysis One significant theme conveyed by Harper Lee throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the destruction of innocence. This theme is conveyed throughout the novel with two main characters, Scout and Jem. Their childhood innocence began to fade as they grew older, finding out that not everyone is good even though they had never seen evil before. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley were both misjudged and had no intentions of hurting anyone, yet they both got hurt

Female sexuality and its representation has been the primary concern of this research while applying each of the approaches to proves that du Maurier’s work builds on Jane Eyre but the portrayal it grants to feminine sexuality and identity renders her work a narrative of modernity on its own. Several critics have analyzed the intertexuality between the two novels. However, this study builds what has been said before to dwell on the not yet exhausted topic of feminine sexuality. Nungesser is one

ESSAY #1 1250-1750 words The Physical House Versus the Symbolic Enclosure Analyzing Structure in the Film Sense and Sensibility The film Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee) gives the audience a visual representation of one of the most well-known Jane Austen novels by producing delicate scenes hidden with mountains of symbolism and major themes straight from the pages of the book. While character representation is crucial for any film adaptation, I chose to focus camera tricks, colors in the film

Nadine Gordimer, the Nobel laureate is a white South African prolific writer. Gordimer believes in the humanistic aspect of people and is the spokesperson of her people. She won her Nobel Prize in the year 1991. Her life brings about the racism and of the downtrodden conditions of the people. Gordimerworks bring out the society needs and the societal problems in different dimensions. She feels that born as a white South African has left her in a fatal isolation and her only thing to bring out is