Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening presents a woman’s quest for self-fulfillment in a society that limits the freedom of women. Through Chopin’s depiction of Edna Pontellier’s individualistic awakening in 19^th century society alongside characters that exude the custom and expected qualities esteemed for women of her class, Chopin shocked her contemporaries by illustrating a woman’s quest for personal desires. Although “The Awakening” was initially criticized because of its controversial subject matter, most critics today applaud Chopin for her feminist portrayal of an individual woman’s quest for self-expression, for she utilizes local color such as setting and Edna’s fellow characters to emphasize this awakening. However, bringing a critical eye to Chopin’s novel, some critics call attention to the limits of Edna’s awakening because even though she pursues individuality she never fully succeeds in her quest for selfhood because she still adheres to the confines of her society. In this way Chopin’s novel uses contrasting cultural forces in Edna’s society to reveal an unfulfilled quest for individuality. Continue reading →

When we began this class, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. While it was as organized, thoughtful, and as well-prepared as I thought it would be, there are a few aspects of the course that I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect our class discussion to challenge so many views that I considered natural or accepted as “inherent truth.” I now try to see every situation from many facets that exist, and try to strip down my automatic society-constructed interpretation of the world around me. This has broadened my understanding on a large scale.

There were a few really frustrating moments during the semester. One aspect of the course that frustrated me was the body paragraph. Although I started it a week and a half early, spent a good deal of time (worked on it every day), and dedicated attention to detail and thought, I *still* had a difficult time preparing what Dr. Seaman asked for. I then tried to write the paragraph before it, and write the one after, even worked on transitions; and then   discussed my process with her in an effort to iron out my “issue.” I just couldn’t grasp how to convey my argument before I had undergone the process of organizing a “paper’s worth of thoughts and organization”. I have a special appreciation now for the actual process of writing a paper, and how I develop my argument as I write and revise. Continue reading →

Louisa May Alcott and the Domestic Un-ideal

            Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 sentimental novel Little Women presents an illustration of everyday life for the domestic family during the nineteenth century.  Through the experiences of the girls from the March family, Alcott mirrors her own struggles, as well as those of other women of her time, to remain “proper” by suppressing emotions such as anger, resentment, and envy.  Many critical approaches to this novel revolve around this idea of self-suppression and Alcott’s use of an autobiographical main character to portray her own lost identity.  One prominent critical method places Little Women in discussion with other narratives written by women at this time, demonstrating writing and their stories as an escape from the binding nature of their culture.  In relation is another critical approach that discusses the ways that sentimental novels from the mid-nineteenth century promote female characters’ positive emotional responses as antidotes to the cruelty of the outside world.  Through her creation of protagonist and autobiographical character Jo March, an angry misfit who channels this through her writing, Alcott demonstrates the idea of writing as an outlet for the control that women so lack in society. Continue reading →

Tennessee Williams: The Real and Written

            Tennessee Williams, most notably known for plays such as A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, has long been close to the hearts of many.   For some, it is his ability to bring together almost polar opposite personalities in a situation or struggle that pits the single person against a whole world of people, opinions and actions that makes William’s work most fascinating.   For others, the signature element often drawing the most fascination from his fans is the way William’s reflects his personal life in the characters, setting and plots of his works.   It is these relationships, and their nature, between his life experiences and the characters, settings and plots in his works that this research project aims to examine. Continue reading →

In “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor,” two of J.D. Salinger’s most critically acclaimed short stories, we find the stories of two World War II veterans struggling to cope with the world around them. While Sergeant X’s story ends with hope, Seymour Glass’ story ends in a shocking suicide. The presence of common cryptic symbolism, common to both stories, such as the presence of little girls, seems to beg their interpretation in context with each other. It is clear that both X and Seymour are going through struggles, but the critical debate lies in what exactly their struggles represent, and how these struggles relate to each other. An instinctive and popular critical approach analyzes each of these stories as parts of an interrelated nine-story cycle, with the meaning of each story contributing to the meaning of the entire cycle. Most critics analyze the cycle and its stories through the lens of eastern religion, which is hinted at in much of J.D. Salinger’s work, particularly among the Glass Family stories. Continue reading →

Drinking as the Cause of Drinking in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 modernist novel The Sun Also Rises takes place within a circle of the American Expatriate scene in Paris and abroad, and is the text of the Lost Generation.  At the center is a man named Jake Barnes, the novel’s narrator and protagonist.  Through him we are given the dead-end of the Great War, in which he was emasculated by a wound.  Jake is thus hindered from forging any intimate relationship with the Lady that he loves, Lady Brett Ashley.  Matts Djos notes that the characters have an inability to connect with one another and that they stay conversant of the surface of things, and this, he argues, is brought on by their drinking.  He reads the characters’ behaviors as paralleling and being products of the numbing state of alcoholism, showing such things as Jake’s inward self-pity as a problematic state of alcoholics as evident in A.A. literature.  Jake then is ultimately supplying and feeding his own impotency and dooming himself into a state where he actually just believes himself disabled of being able to forge any intimate relationship with Brett, with his inner eye focused solely on his inability to literally penetrate a connection, and this being the be-all end-all.  Such a focus would make a fellow feel insecure about his masculinity.  In covering up this inability to pay, Jake’s economy becomes the makeup of his values.  He pays for and buys his masculinity—like when he leaves a club in Paris one night with Brett and leaves Georgette, a prostitute, behind, leaving her money with the house to be collected upon her finding of his departure.  Jake Barnes thus buys his masculinity and saves his self from being jeopardized by any confrontation with his inability to perform.  It is ultimately, then, this economy, birthed from his insecurity which is influenced by his idea of intimacy’s focus, that disconnects him in his values. Continue reading →

Exploring Conscious and Unconscious Psychological Issues and Theories in Peter Pan

            J.M. Barrie’s 1911 novel Peter Pan has garnered a reputation of being a beloved and classic children’s tale. However, the subject of adversity to the adult world may not be exactly be rooted in total childlike innocence. The characters exhibit signs of deeper psychological issues of which they might not even be aware on the conscious level. John Griffith’s critical approach finds Peter’s relationships and encounters to be quite interesting. He addresses the topic of mothers and Peter’s desire to be without one but also his desire to have one so that she may tend to him at all times. This also touches on its relation to any oedipal desires. Griffith states that, by bringing girls to Neverland to play his mother/wife instead of women, this frees Peter from feeling what he does not wish to feel. Griffith also says that Peter’s relationship with Hook is like a father-son tie, except the two are competing with each other for the motherly attention of Wendy. By killing Hook, Peter has symbolically murdered his own father-figure whom he saw as a threat. Continue reading →

Rand’s The Fountainhead: The “Problem” of the Female Protagonist

Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel The Fountainhead is a narrative about a young architect named Roark who faces societal opposition to his innovational, or non-traditional, approach to architectural design. The novel depicts Roark’s journey from design school to the establishment of his career, revealing a struggle between his radical architectural ideals and a society deeply invested in both classical architecture and intolerance of Individualism. The theory of Individualism places value upon the individual, as opposed to the communal society or the “masses”. In the novel, the masses value conventional modes of art, such as classical Greek and Latin architectural forms; as Roark’s architectural ideals contrast sharply with those of society, he is at odds with the architects and artistic critics of his time. One critic of his architectural design in the narrative is Dominique, the female protagonist and his love interest in the novel. The characterization and ideals of Dominique exhibited in The Fountainhead reveals that she obscures the fact that her ideals align with those demonstrated by Roark. Continue reading →

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is perhaps his most famous work, and the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has been analyzed by a multitude of critics over a span of generations. Holden Caulfield is a symbolic character who to many represents an archetype of adolescence. The struggles of Holden Caulfield hits a sensitive nerve among people and they are able to connect with him on a personal level, which is part of the reason as to why The Catcher in the Rye is still a popular book even today. The complexities of Holden Caulfield have attracted a great deal of attention form literary critics.

The interpretations these critics give vary greatly but it is widely accepted that the adventure within the book is Caulfield’s reaction to the “real world,” in other words, the world of adults. Holden Caulfield is unable to come to terms with the world of adults, that much is certain, but how he approaches the problem is disagreed upon. The two most prominent critical interpretations see Caulfield as either an idealist or a person whose inability to come to terms with reality has left him emotionally unstable.  Continue reading →