Hairball Margaret Atwood Summary

“The Poverty line doesn't measure Poverty, it measures extreme Poverty," (Shapiro Marcy). Barbra Kingsolver’s book The Bean Trees, Focusses on the social justice issue Poverty. The Main character Taylor Leaves Kentucky, to escape poverty, she was determined to be different from all others who dropped out of school and had children. She dreamt of being different and achieving something with her life. In the The Bean Trees, Barbra Kingsolver challenges the idea that people in poverty are lazy and never work. Poverty is a fight that some have to fight every day, it is not by choice that some people struggle.

In Margaret Atwood's Hairball, The main character Kat, faces problems over the years of her life between relationships, friends and work. Towards the end of the story, Kat’s world is turned upside down and leads up to her getting fired by her love and becoming mentally ill. Illusion vs reality is evident in this story when Kat starts lying to herself by convincing herself and everyone else that her life is glamorous by creating a fantasy world filled with all of her creations. Firstly, Kat changes the image of Gerald, her boss and lover she changes him into a new and improved “Ger”. Kat doesn’t realize her creation isn’t her own anymore when Ger calls her down to his office and lets her know that she’s been fired and replaced by him. Kat immediately

In the fictional book, The Outsiders (1967), Susan Eloise Hinton, better know as S.E. Hinton, asserts and reports that a young fourteen year old greaser, or “hood”, living in Tulsa, Oklahoma is more than he presents in a honest story of reality. Hinton writes a shocking and intense novel to establish a deeper meaning to the life of a greaser born on the wrong side of town. Susan Eloise Hinton develops the book off of her own highschool life when she was sixteen. Hinton tells the story along the lines of the Hero’s Journey Archetype, as the main character and protagonist, Ponyboy. Hinton’s purpose of starting this novel at age sixteen

In the book, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, the reader becomes emotionally involved with the lives all of the characters. The audience gets pulled into the dangerous life of card counting and learns about each character along the way. The main character, Kevin Lewis, stands out among the rest of the characters in the book due to his conflicting desires. It is apparent that Kevin struggles to find a balance between his responsibilities in the real world and a fantasy life in Vegas. He is in a constant battle between personal gain and the yearning for his father 's approval.

Through the series of events that tore Linda from her home in London, landed her in the Reservation, and brought her back to "civilized society", Linda was able to experience the joy of motherhood and personal relationships she had been conditioned from birth to despise, but was also forced to experience the pain that comes from being an outsider not only in a strange world, but in your own home.

Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is often attacked for its misogynistic oppression of women and domestically abusive undertones, especially for the ‘taming’ of the titular shrew, Katherina. However, in an at least humanist, if not feminist, point of view, I argue that there are two different but overlapping sets of relationship dynamics between our main couple. Their relationship is constantly dual-layered. The first is the pair’s “madly mated” (3.3.242) personalities which allows them to form a partnership that proves to be a union of equals by Act 5. While the other, shaped and influenced by the social expectations of the ‘public,’ is the dynamic that relies on both of their imaginations to play the roles that they are presumably assigned

In the story Hairball by Margaret Atwood, Kat is living in a fictitious world as she lives life with a fake persona, but in reality she is lost and does not know who she truly is. Firstly, Kat has gone through many personality changes throughout her life; from her childhood as the pure Katherine, to high school Kathy, and blunt university Kath, to finally her present chic image Kat. Her character change suggests that she was constantly looking for who she truly was. However she still does not find her true self as at the end of the story she says, “... [I am] temporarily without a name.”(45) At this scene, Kat gave away her tumor ‘Hairball’ which symbolizes giving away her image as Kat. This indicates readers that she is back at another personality

The hippie movement is arguably one of the most famous culture movements from the twentieth century, made widely famous in pop-culture involving romanticized images of overly friendly people clothed in bell-bottom pants and flower-print button down shirts. The romanticization of this movement allowed for a widely accepted and skewed view of the true events that happened during this time. The reality is much darker than publicized to the ignorant generations that followed. It can be maintained by many that personal experience and firsthand knowledge provides the most accurate depiction of the true happenings of the time period. Through vivid imagery and impersonal diction, Joan Didion offers a critical unveiling the mayhem that she witnessed during her various firsthand immersions in the developing culture of the 1960s.

She is described as “very pretty and simple and her face was sweet and young.” hence showing the ulterior innocence she held despite her actions. Furthermore, “the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face” highlighting that her true beauty finally emerged through her façade. Her ‘ache for attention’ suggests the level of desperation was so deep that she was physically pained for it. The stark contrast between these descriptions to her initial one stuns readers as it signifies how her experiences moulded her to become vitriolic. Her description has become positive, as if death has released her from the vicious cyclic pattern. Additionally, usage of metaphors such as “sun streaks were high on the wall by now, and the light was growing soft in the barn”, signify that all hope left with her soul. The diction of “soft” also implies her innocence and readers experience sympathy for her fate. Before she died, the phrase “writhed to be free” was used. This may refer to her ensnarement within the vicious cycle and her desire to escape it- however, only death could free her. Similarly, her body “flopped like a fish” further displaying how she was helplessly held captive as prey, linking to her vulnerability. When “a pigeon flew in through the open hay door and circled and flew out again” it may indirectly refer to the vicious cycle through “circled”. Alternately,

I would have never thought about what my body could be used for after my death. In Stiff, written by Mary Roach, we learn about all the ways cadavers are used in Science. With this information, Roach persuades us to have an open mind about donating our bodies by informing us in an entertaining way.

he character ,“Kat”, in Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Hairball”, is unable to clearly see who she truly is due to the fact that she isn’t comfortable being herself. In the short story Kat alters her personality to create an ideal illusion , in order to cope with her reality. For example Kat states “What you also had to make them believe was that they could know this thing, this thing that would give them eminence and power and sexual allure ...” (34) this line symbolizes her beliefs on fitting in with the society around her, therefore proving that Kat altered her personality to fit in with the people around her. Secondly not only did Kat change herself, she changed Gerald into the man she thought she wanted. For example Kat explains Gerald’s

A theory, defined by the Webster dictionary, is “an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true, but that is not known or proven to be true.” William Glasser was an American psychiatrist who developed reality therapy and choice theory. Glasser’s Choice Theory states that most choices are picked to please the five basic human needs of freedom, fun, love and belonging, power, and survival. Glasser believes that humans are driven by their genes to make choices based on what they need the most. The three needs of freedom, love and belonging, and power― and her lack of them― tell how Melinda in the novel Speak perceives herself as lonely, weak, and vulnerable.

Kat has built her imaginary world depending on the ovarian cyst to run away from reality. First, after Kat’s undergoing a surgery and taking the ovarian cyst home, she stores it in formaldehyde on her mantelpiece. “The cyst turned out to be a benign tumor’. Kat liked that use of benign“as if the thing had a soul and wished her well” (31).Kat‘s taking home the hairball and naming it showed the unfairness in throwing out the hairball and how it would be lonely and sad which reflects on Kat’s personality. Kat was as lonely as the hairball, so she makes Hairball her companion. It becomes the one that understands and consoles her in her pain. Second, she humanizes her cyst by naming it “Hairball”, giving it human characteristics andfantasizes that

Uwen Akpan chooses Monique as a narrator to show the loss of innocence caused by the traumatic effects of war. By telling a story through a child’s lens, Akpan allows his readers to experience the cruelty a child faces because of the wrongdoings of adults. Throughout the story, a nine-year-old Monique suffered assault, rape, and witnessed the murder of her mother by her father. To show the effects of violence from a different viewpoint, Akpan gives an insight on victim’s conflicted thoughts and emotional trauma. Monique’s innocence is completely shattered when she witnesses her father killing her mother. At that very moment, her barbarous reality clashes with her innocence—this confliction is unveiled when she cannot decide whether she “wants

The clip I’ve pulled comes from an 1980’s episode of The Young and the Restless. When examining the sequence it’s hard not to notice all the tropes of the TV serial that are in play here. First of all the amount of exposition in the scene is outstanding, with the characters of Katherine and Jill discussing their relationships with Phillip. Katherine discusses how Jill tore up their perfect marriage and Jill mentions that Phillip told her that their marriage was coming to an end anyway. If an audience member had missed the past couple of episodes this would have been a great use of exposition to catch the audience up on the current situation. The next trope at use is the motivations behind the actions. Katherine is pissed off that Jill stole her husband and plans on shooting her, since she obviously took what she wanted. Katherine’s desire to axe off