In The Glass Castle, I think the significance of Jeanette's fascination with fire is that she no longer fears it. After her incident, she was afraid of fire. On page 15, her mother said, "You've got to get right back in the saddle. You can't live in fear of something as basic as fire." Also, on page 15, her father told her that she should come face to face with her enemy.
Themes in “The Storm” Kate Chopin was an American author that wrote many stories that are based in Louisiana. She bases most of her work on women’s movement of the nineteenth century. One of Chopin’s prevalent stories called “The Storm”, focuses on the expectation of women’s marriage in the 1800’s. This story demonstrates numerous significant elements that give the reader a sense of what is going on throughout the story.
Chopin’s View Towards Marriage Kate Chopin wrote “The Story of An Hour” to portray how it felt to be a married woman during the late nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth century women did not have as many rights or as much freedom as we do know, they were more likely to marry someone than to stay single. Although, Chopin projects through the main character in the story, why being a married woman is like being an imprisoned woman. Through the story, Chopin reveals her feelings and thoughts of not being married.
“It’s not often you get female characters who don’t fit into a box.” (Rebecca Hall). In classic literature, it is commonly believed women are portrayed as uninteresting characters that are all seen as similar or uncomplex. Stories such as The Scarlet Pimpernel show that contrary to that belief, women are exactly opposite of that. Women in classic literature have real, human-like problems and lives.
In the short stories, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “Wildwood” by Junot Diaz, there are a similar type of theme and main character. Both short stories utilize a theme of freedom and a main character that goes along with the theme. The main character is one that is “held back” and wants to have freedom, but there is an antagonist that is preventing that from happening. However, towards the end of the story, there is a plot twist and change in the mindset of the main character. Both stories end very differently, but with the same sort of idea.
“It all begins and ends with your mind. What you give power to, has power over you if you allow it” -Joyce Meyer. There is power everywhere but it only goes as far as one lets it. In The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Emma Orczy, Chauvelin has power over Marguerite because she is fearful of him.
If someone were to ask you the difference between the twentieth century and the twenty first, the list assembled would include things such as: technology, transportation, education, etc. However, most people don’t realize the difference in the responsibility taken on by teenagers. In 1942, young adults from the age of fifteen were being drafted from their families to train for the war so that when they reached eighteen they were ready to be sent away to bloodshed. In today’s society most young adults do have jobs and involvement in extracurricular activities, but nothing compares to the war they were brought up to know. As a young adult, it’s not completely rare to experience our own kind of war - against family, friends and even within ourselves.
Relationships are complicated, but can you imagine what it would have been like back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s? Women were still expected to live in the stereotypical role where men were in charge. Men still have a lot of power, but women are becoming more and more independent. However, it is interesting to differentiate how a woman author and a man author portray relationships. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” there are different relationship dynamics portrayed.
Harlyn’s Fairy – Katya Hvostova Fantasy and reality are drawn on a fine line. In “Harlyn’s Fairy” the significance of fantasy within reality is not to embellish in ignorance or expectation to believe in the fantastical element of the narrative, rather to distinguish significance from allegorical themes and translate the messages into reality. Through Yolen’s short story, the characterization of the protagonist, Harlyn, her mother and Aunt Marilyn, display conflicting opinions on fantasy. The characters contrast each other’s point of view to further the significance in the influence of fantasy and imagination has on the mind. Aunt Marilyn defines the fantastical as empty make-believe.
Authors write stories sometimes based on their beliefs, despite conflicting influences like society or normalities of eras. Because of this, their themes can be quite straightforward and based on the time period. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and Susan Glaspell's “A Jury of Her Peers,” the female protagonists have the craving for freedom from their state of living; this passion of freedom shapes their environment and influences on the people they love and on their own self. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” the main protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, suddenly realizes that she has the potential to be free after hearing the statement of her husband’s death.