In the short stories “Gwilans Harp” by Ursula K. le Guin, “The Washwoman” by Isaac Singer, and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry all the characters experience a loss of some kind. In “Gwilans Harp” Gwilan loses her favorite harp, her husband, and her ability to play. “The Washwoman” focuses on the loss of a woman’s contact with her son, her health, and her ability to work. Finally, in “The Last Leaf” the two young ladies Johnsy and Sue learn loss through the loss of Johnsy’s health, the loss of hope, and the loss of their neighbor. Despite the fact that all the short stories deal with the theme of loss they deal with this theme differently.
These three stories present loss as a loss of meaning of life, loss as a physical need, no longer fulfilled, and loss as a loss of will to live. All three are loss, but none of them affect their ‘subjects’ in the same way. In LeGuin’s story, “Gwilan’s harp” the main character, Gwilan, experiences a very unique loss: the loss of what gave
In the short stories: “Gwilan’s Harp” by Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Washwoman” by Isaac Singer, and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry, all of the authors make their characters go thorough loss. Gwilan in “Gwilan’s Harp” loses her harp—her livelihood. The Jewish family in “The Washwoman” experiences the loss of their servant, and Johnsy in “The Last Leaf” loses a friend that saved her life. However, none of these stories end with a sense of loss. All of them finish with a sense of victory over their specific hardship.
In the stories “Gwilan’s Harp” by Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Washwoman” by Isaac Singer, and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry, the characters experience great loss. Each of these stories’ most tragic moment happens when an important character dies. “Gwilan’s Harp” portrays the loss of Torm, Gwilan’s husband; however, the author creates redemption at the conclusion. The touching washwoman’s demise in “The Washwoman,” though heartbreaking, reveals an excellent moral lesson. Lastly, “The Last Leaf” not only includes good applicable themes, but also the unpredictable fatality of Behrman, of whom no one thinks very highly and yet has a great effect on the reader.
2 more sentences! The loss in Gwilan’s life nearly stifles her hope. First, in a wagon accident, her beloved harp shatters and her wrist breaks. As a result, her livelihood as a musician ends. Later in her life even after she receives new harps, she cannot play since her hands
While in her way to “recovery” in the mansion she climbs up Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in a negative way until she reaches the top which drove her to madness. While she goes up the ladder, she continues to build her own world inside the room where the yellow wallpaper is located and when she finally finishes her own world and breaks free instead of letting her husband build her the world she wants. As said before, Gilman used her writing abilities to expose her readers to controversial topics in that era, women were leaving in a man’s world, therefore she spread awareness and encourage their readers of what a woman really wants, her ideas are projected into her characters and their development throughout the story just like the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” that represented women all around the world. Gilman spoke for all oppressed women whenever she wrote stories that her readers could feel a connection with, she was also an example of how woman can build their own world themselves without the need of a man. Malala Yousafzai once
Death does not scare this man, and his sense of survival makes the reader hopeful. The text also states, “He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night” (30). At this point in the story, Farquhar escapes the grasp of death and travels back to his home.
portrays the stories of fictional Haitian character’s struggles and how they overcome great odds through hope. The death of a parent causes devastating pain and can leave many hopeless. Though remembering that hope exists through the next generation can keep you going . An example of hope through the next generation is presented in chapter “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”. In the year 1937 a pregnant daughter (who is referred to only as “Manman”, meaning mother) and her mother had to flee the Dominican Republic to Haiti during the Parsley Massacre.
In the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman represents how wretchedness is overlooked and changed into blended sentiments that eventually result in a significantly more profound enduring incongruity. The Yellow Wallpaper utilizes striking mental and psychoanalytical symbolism and an effective women's activist message to present a topic of women' have to escape from detainment by their male centric culture. In the story, the narrator's better half adds to the generalization individuals put on the rationally sick as he confines his significant other from social circumstances and keeps her in an isolated house. The narrator it's made out to trust that something isn't right with her and is informed that she experiences some illness by her own significant other John. As we come to discover John, controls the narrator and she, with her benevolence and love that she has for John trusts whatever he advises her.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, a woman is seen descending into severe post-partum depression, and eventually madness. While this story and the woman herself can be analyzed through many different lenses of perspective, one lens which may not be seen often is how the woman is a hero, but a failed one at that. The narrator and main character of “The Yellow Wallpaper” can be determined as a kind of failed hero through an archetypal lens of analysis, which identifies her initiation, her quest, and the sacrificial scapegoat of the situation. Every hero needs some sort of start, with harrowing conditions, which metamorphoses them into an actual hero. Any hero’s initiation can be broken down into three parts consisting of the disconnection which sets them apart as someone whose storyline is worthy to be followed, their evolution as an individual, and their homecoming as a hero.