In “the Patented Gate and the Mean Hamburger,” Robert Penn Warren’s two main characters, Mr. Jeff York and his wife, portray the stereotype of a Midwestern, MidAmerican, less than affluent farmer and his wife during the 1930’s. However, both Mr. and Mrs. York have characteristics that deviate from their main stereotypes. Standing on the corner, York has a gaunt, cadaverous visage. He has a tired look on his face that, in one way or another, parallels to his washed out, tired, blue jean overalls. One could easily come to understand that he has worked hard his whole life, and despite his appearance, his pale, blue-grey eyes reveal life and love for his wife and children.
In “Marrying Absurd,” Joan Didion describes the colorful circus of “Dressing Rooms, Flowers, Rings, and Announcements” belonging to “mobsters and call girls” in what was the Las Vegas wedding scene. With this unrealistic and dysfunctional background for her setting, Didion cleverly satirizes the act of marriage. Through her use of juxtaposition, syntax, ironic and comical anecdotes, and with a disparaging tone, Didion argues that the fabricated “expectations” of marriages are manipulated to feed the wedding industry financially and only leaves heartbroken newlyweds. Throughout the piece, Didion juxtaposes ideas, playing with their literal meanings to evoke a comical feeling towards Las Vegas weddings.
In his introductory paragraph, he begins his anecdote with seemingly vicious words: “My first victim was a woman” (Staples 542). This
In the short story “Birthday Party” by Katharine Brush, may literary devices are used to achieve a purpose. Brush uses devices such as imagery, diction, oxymoron, and repetition to convey a birthday surprise gone wrong. In addition to the birthday surprise, Brush also uses these devices to convey feelings. First, the short story begins with a third person point of view.
The speaker’s grandmother is originally presented in a way that causes the ending to be a surprise, saying, “Her apron flapping in a breeze, her hair mussed, and said, ‘Let me help you’” (21-22). The imagery of the apron blowing in the wind characterizes her as calm, and when she offers to help her grandson, she seems to be caring and helpful. Once she punches the speaker, this description of her changes entirely from one of serenity and care to a sarcastic description with much more meaning than before. The fact that the grandmother handles her grandson’s behavior in this witty, decisive way raises the possibility that this behavior is very common and she has grown accustomed to handling it in a way that she deems to be effective; however, it is clearly an ineffective method, evidenced by the continued behavior that causes her to punish the speaker in this manner in the first place.
As soon as Isabel notices her parents are attending the same show as her and her new boyfriend, she intricately details their current state and, in turn, this detail-orientation creates amusement. Isabel begins her description by comparing her mother’s outfit to a “willow tree”. De Botton uses this simile disguised as an insult to portray Isabel’s mother’s character as one of whom Isabel does not approve; it additionally implies her old age from which Isabel wishes to distance herself. Furthermore, de Botton foreshadows family crisis and turmoil in his introduction suggesting that Isabel’s mother has multiple “gentleman friends” as Isabel hopes “she didn’t come with one” of them. Not only is her mother unfaithful to her father, but, “with any luck, they’ll be too busy arguing to glance up” at Isabel and her date indicating an unhappy marriage.
The story opens with Mrs. Wright imprisoned for strangling her husband. A group, the mostly composed of men, travel to the Wright house in the hopes that they find incriminating evidence against Mrs. Wright. Instead, the two women of the group discover evidence of Mr. Wright’s abuse of his wife. Through the women’s unique perspective, the reader glimpses the reality of the situation and realizes that, though it seemed unreasonable at the time, Mrs. Wright had carefully calculated her actions. When asked about the Wrights, one of the women, Mrs. Hale, replies “I don’t think a place would be a cheerful for John Wright’s being in it” (“A Jury of Her Peers” 7).
Janie’s relation with Joes till his death is another step to realize the real meaning of domination and liberation. The moment that Janie kills her third husband Tea Cake is a must in the novel. Although Tea Cake liberated Janie from two different kinds of domination for a period of time but he turns to practice another kind of domination through his physical abuse and his jealousy; so his murder is a momentary freedom for Janie. Janie in her development and growth contends to replace the old culture concept that places women’s wishes on material and economic demands by love and affection.
Eventually, we realize that the woman in the wallpaper is the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator 's mental state continues to deteriorate. Being both the narrator 's husband and physician, John assumes that he knows what’s best for his wife. However, in this essay, I will argue that Gilman portrays John as an antagonist or “villain” in her story because, through his actions, he is the main reason for his wife 's descent into insanity which proves that he didn’t know what was best for his wife after all.
In “Birthday Party,” Katharine Brush’s purpose for writing the short story was to reveal how something that is good can go so wrong. She also demonstrates how some things are not what they seem. Especially in the situation that she wrote. Her purpose from the beginning to end is demonstrated by the use of literary devices. Brush begins by describing the scenario, she states, “They sat on the banquette opposite us.”
The dialogue in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” reveals a man’s and a woman’s incongruent conflict on abortion, and the author’s fundamentally feminist position is visible in the portrayal of the woman’s independent choice of whether or not to keep the baby she is carrying. The plot is very simple in the story which is less than 1500 words long. A woman and a man spend less than an hour on a hot summers day at a Spanish train station in the valley of Ebro as they are waiting for a train heading for Madrid. Their dialogue takes up most of the space and only few major actions take place.
Further, situational irony is present through the reaction that Louise Mallard has after learning about her husband’s death. Upon first learning of her husband’s death she is very devastated and distraught. As soon as she is alone in the bathroom however, it is clear to the readers she is not as upset. In fact she is slightly relieved in that “she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome” (235).
The man has probably cheated or done something shameful causing him to not make eye contact with his partner. The wife is expressing her anger by attacking him with her choice of words. Instead of explaining the situation to the readers, she uses her words to convict her husband of something he has done. The reason why this is important to the theme is
She insults him when she calls him a bastard but even more she is insulting this power that he has over her. He believes that he takes his power back when he calls her back and says that if she “had cried […] he would have behaved better.” The wrongly placed blame marks this shift of power, ultimately making her feel powerless yet
When Richard’s heard the news of her husband’s death, he assumed Mrs. Mallard would be devastated. While everyone knew Mrs. Mallard was “afflicted with heart trouble” (57), him and her sister, Josephine, wanted to give her the news with “great care” (57). Josephine broke the news to Mrs. Mallard in “broken sentences”
