Accordingly, the third part of WSS is based on Antoinette’s third dream in which she visualizes herself dying in fire that she sets in Rochester’s mansion. The grotesque imagery of Antoinette’s death represents an unfinished metamorphosis of death and birth, of growth and becoming. Her jump into the burning pool should not be read as a defeated suicide. Instead, it is a kind of triumph that liberates her from the oppressive discourses manifested in her feelings of flying like a bird as she says: “the wind caught my hair and it streamed out like wings” (123). Her fall thus, is a kind of victorious carnivalesque rebirth that celebrates the revelry of life and death. Indeed, death is highly estimated in Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque as he …show more content…
in Malpas 57). Thus, in her narrative she recuperates new forms of being for her heroine who embraces the multiplicity of selves and the fluidity of her evolving subjectivities. Her self-splitting female protagonist breaks down the conventional boundaries of fixity dwelling in the the realm of openness that celebrates the futurity of her identity and the flexibility of her perpetual state of becoming. By offering a plausible past life for her Creole protagonist, Rhys endows Bertha Mason with an alternative identity through giving her the name of Antoinette Cosway. Quickly after her mother’s marriage to Mr. Mason Rhys’s female protagonist who becomes Antoinette Cosway Mason, as she tells us “I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, née Cosway, Mount Calvary Convent, Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1839” (29). Antoinette’s nomadic identity that resists closure and finality is further addressed in the novel when she gets married to Edward Rochester. According to the English Law, Rhys’s heroine is given the last name of her husband to become Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester. Within this accretion of names Antoinette …show more content…
the dualistic polarities about identity and culture are revised in the cooperative form of ‘both/and’. She “initiates new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration and contestation,” while revising the dualistic polarities about culture and identity cooperating them in the mutual form of ‘both/and’ (Bhabha 1). To explain more, Her condonation of Rochester’s calls “Bertha! Bertha” that define her as an English woman and her leap into fire where she sees the figure of Tia, her black Caribbean alter ego, should not be read as a movement towards her personal cancellation in which she seeks a complete identification with the black girl. Instead, it is an instance of rebirth in which Antoinette acknowledges her belonging to the Caribbean world and, thus, asserts her hybrid identity, embracing her in-betweeness and celebrating both parts, black and white, of her national identity. She seeks to bypass the Sargasso Sea in a triumphant self-fulfilment and self-awareness. By making her heroine heralds to the celebration of her hybridity, she enables her to transgress “the gates separating outer and inner realities, but this time by her own choice and with the knowledge of her own power. She finds this power in her ability to act where she actually is-in the midst of two worlds […] in the wide Sargasso Sea,” as Mary Lou
Ironic Symbolism in The Age of Innocence: Name That Transformation Imagine living a life in a pre-destined, high-class society – a place that decides if one’s job, marriage, clothing, housing, and lifestyle are worthy of approval. Envision the struggle that must come about each person has they try to decipher the real meaning of their life and where their happiness truly lies. The ideas of identity and individuality are ongoing themes uncovered in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. The variety of characters and the names given to them significantly differ from one another purposefully to show the different struggles each character faces.
Juliet travels to the Guernsey Island to collect stories of people’s lives during World War 2. What she learns restores her faith in humanity. “Sophie- what is the matter with me? Am I too particular? I don’t want to be married just to be married.
Michelle Cliff’s short story Down the Shore conspicuously deals with a particularly personal and specific, deeply psychological experience, in order to ultimately sub-textually create a metaphor regarding a wider issue of highly social nature. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. The story’s explicit personal factor is developed through the literary techniques of repetition, symbolism, metaphor, as well as slightly warped albeit telling references to a distinct emotional state, while its implicit social factor is suggested via the techniques of allusion, so as to ultimately create a generally greater, undergirding metaphor.
Imagery and Symbolism Edith Wharton creates the novel with a high percentage of imagery and symbolism in one. Some ways she combines both imagery and symbolism together is by a flower. Wharton states, “He had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first impulse was to send them to May instead of the lilies. But they did not look like her - there was something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty”(Wharton).
nkenstein is a novel written by Marry Shelley about a student of science named Victor Frankenstein , who make a monstrous but responsive being in an unconventional technical experiment. Shelley wrote it when her age was eighteen years old and the novel came when she was at the age of twenty. The first edition of her book was available in London and the second one in France. Frankenstein is basically filled with essentials of the Gothic novel and the Romantic Movement and is measured as one of the science fiction The aim of the study is to investigate about the mythical norms created by the society about beauty and ugliness and that if an ugly person reacts devastatingly then it’s just the mere reflection of the society that how they treat a person as we can witness in Mary Shelley Frankenstein.
The novel by Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale, was truly a remarkable and unbeatable story depicting two women who have taken extremely opposite stands in regards to Nazis occupation in France. Throughout the storyline, Hannah was able to weave the ink on a page into wondrous and thrilling narrations from these two sisters. Indeed, one almost feels as if they were completely submerged in the mind’s of these dynamic characters. In a way, Vianne and Isabelle can be compared to the actions of the natural elements of fire and water. One goes with the flow, not really pushing against the current; while the other blazes against everything in its path, not stopping for anything, or anyone.
In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.
Antoinette lacks an identity, not only in the hands of her husband who reduces her personality and changes her name, but also in the eyes of everybody else. She is a puppet, something that belongs to the hands that are holding it; she is what the people think she is and belongs to nowhere. She is trapped in her “own Sargasso Sea”, trapped between two worlds, Europe and Jamaica, but without belonging to any of them. She cannot form her personal identity, but on the contrary “Rhys suggests that so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism” (Chakravorty Spiva, 250), therefore, although Antoinette wishes to become English, it is something she cannot control because there are so many prejudices attached to her Creole condition.
In Kate Chopin’ s novel, The Awakening, there are three identities inside of the female leading role, Edna Pontellier, being a wife, mother and own self. Edna was born in 19th century at the Vitoria period, a patriarchy society, women have low freedom to achieve personal goal. She married with Léonce Pontellier, a wealthy man with Creole descent. After having a child, her life is still unchangeable and as bored as before. Until she encountered Robert Leburn, Mademoiselle Reisz, and Alcée Arobin, her value of self-cognition has changed.
Beauty and ugliness is often used to justify the reaction of others in the novel, Frankenstein; in which the relation between external appearance and internal desires are shown to be related. The theme of how appearance affects judgement is often demonstrated through the characters response to the monster’s physical being. Shelley depicts this situation through Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the Delacey family, and through the monster himself. The use of appearance to determine judgement is shown to be a negative habit. By automatically associating ugliness with evil, and beauty with innocence, society unintentionally develops a negative being in those considered ugly, while at the same creating an illusion of innocence over beautiful individuals.
Louise’s victory in accepting her husband’s death is a feeling that she now cannot live without. The ultimate death of Louise Mallard is one that represents physical and emotional defeat. In this dramatic short story, Chopin uses imagery to sew together a tapestry of emotions all encompassed in an ill-stricken widow. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.”
In her childhood, the unnamed narrator has had a wild imagination which still haunts her: she admits "I do not sleep," and as a result she becomes restless.(653). Her imagination makes her live in an imagined world of her own and completely detached from reality. The
Kate Chopin introduces her main character as “Mrs. Mallard” to signify her being married. However, within her marriage, she loses herself. Being married, she took her husband’s last name and became a wife. In a way it changed her personality. She was no longer her own self, she was someone else’s “property”.
Jane Eyre, published in 1847, by focusing on its protagonist’s, Jane’s personality, dependency and self governance. The aim of this study is to look into Jane’s development and analyze her identity with the help of a theoretical framework drawn from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology, and within the context of the Victorian era. The novel focuses on Jane’s experiences and psychological growth from youth to adulthood. Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts or writings.
In the play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The author utilizes symbolism throughout the play with the intention of giving the reader more insight into the true nature of the characters and their actions. In one of the scenes, George is seen taking a rifle and pointing it at Martha. When George shoots this rifle only an umbrella comes out of the barrel of the rifle. The rifle itself is a phallic symbol, while the rifle only shoots out an umbrella symbolizes shooting blanks.