In Loveland

The example shown is able to prove that in the story Atwood’s personal views will affect the way the story is written and told. Overall, as shown in the story, Verna has had issues with her past husband showing a sense of revenge when she talks about him and how she felt, thus leading to emptiness and tiredness when thinking of these hard times. This sense of emptiness is the ending result of getting revenge. When Verna was assaulted by Bob when she was younger she remembers: '"it does leave an empty space, doesn’t it?' Bob says. 'A sort of blank.' Verna admits that it does.'" This example comes from when Verna was young and assaulted by her later admirer, Bob. Bob and Verna talk about how revenge will lead to emptiness later in life. Not only in “Stone Mattress,” but in Atwood's’ other stories she has the same central theme of needing revenge. Along with this work several of her other writing pieces are, “steeped in primal themes: the hero's journey, revenge, betrayal, gallantry, the outcast, the tragic” (Weller). Not to mention her most common themes all have to do with damage done to a character based on her themes of betrayal, tragedy, and most importantly revenge. Lastly, Atwood is able to use her point of view in her stories to bring out the most important and prominent themes that she is trying to reach.

Introduction: John’s domination over the Narrator is evident from the beginning of the short story. The Narrator remains unknown and takes the identity of John’s wife not an individual human being. This identity, further explored, becomes her personality because she obeys John’s every command.

When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the only function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from the

In the story the author portrays the protagonist differently from the other characters because she talks about the physical appearance of other characters and when it comes to the narrator we have no idea what she looks like but she is developed partially through her relationship with other characters, although we the readers do come the find out that the narrator is around the age of 15-17 years old and we can assume that she has a bad relationship with her parents because first of all she talks about them maybe once or twice in the whole story and second of all we know that they sent her to boarding school so that alone proves that her relationship with them is lacking. As readers we also know that she has trouble opening up in the story she say “To open your heart. You open your legs but can’t, or don’t dare anyone, to open your heart” (237). This is a prime example of how author characterizes the protagonist as broken and emotionally damaged. And as the story progress the author becomes more honest with us the readers and herself, she starts the reveal the pain she is in and how lonely she feels. The narrator gives us an example of how she feels after sex by saying “After sex, you curl up like a shrimp, something deep inside you ruined, slammed in a place that sickness at

The author carefully crafts the story so that every detail contributes to a certain unique or single effect, whether it is as complex as irony or as simple as depiction of feelings. The Husband describes his absolute love for Ann as he reminisces about the years he spent with her and how deeply he "knows"

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

Never judge a book by its cover. This being said, in Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” there are three main characters; the narrator, his wife, and their guest of honor, Robert. He is visiting the narrator’s wife after the passing of his own beloved wife, Beulah. Prior to their meet, the Narrator, is terribly jealous of Robert. He has grown tired of his wife consistently talking about this blindman who she used to assist with his work. She tells the Narrator that before her second marriage, Robert placed his hands on her face and it was the most sensational feeling ever. His visit brings an unwelcoming comfortability for the Narrator. How can someone be so jealous of another’s friendship? Robert is the epitome of a short story character. He

The narrator’s feelings of inferiority and powerlessness parallels the female figure she sees trapped behind the pattern in the wall-paper adorning her room. She gradually withdraws from both John and reality by locking herself in the room and ultimately merging with the figure. Through the changing image of the pattern from a “fait figure” (Gilman 46) to a “woman stooping” (Gilman 46) behind the paper and “shaking the bars” (Gilman 46) as if she wanted “to get out” (Gilman 46), we can see her becoming one with the figure: “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”(51) Her collapse into madness as reflected in her behavior with the “bedstead [that] is fairly gnawed” (Gilman 51) and her “creeping all around” (Gilman 50) is a direct result of her passive submissiveness to John’s control of her life.

At this point she simply finds no other way but to accept the stereotypical view of a young innocent girl in a relationship with an experienced man, another example of women being victims of male authority. The key to the bloody chamber is the key to her selfhood and subjugation that will ultimately kill her. ‘The protagonist’s husband clearly considers her an object of exchange and plans to inscribe upon her his continuing tale of punishment for wives’ disobedience’[viii] again showing how women make themselves victims of their own behaviour, Helen Simpson’s interpretation is that ‘I really cant see what’s wrong with finding out about what the great male fantasies about women are’ [ix] The heroine fights against the victimisation, and indeed reverses role with the male in the story, as it is Marquis who dies and it is the female who leaves this chamber and finds happiness.

Throughout Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” the stain on the narrator’s forehead represents the violence that is hidden within masculinity authority. The narrator is controlled by her husband and only follows his orders. However, once the narrator gains knowledge of the violence that her husband does, her destiny is challenged. Carter has the narrator controlled by her husband, who acts as a puppet master.

The points of view in which the stories "The Itch" by Don DeLillo and "The Other Wife" by Colette are written have substantial impact on the way that readers get to know and understand the characters in them. The authors of these stories combine narration style and characterizations to construct stories that enable their readers to understand the characters, and the ways that they change and develop throughout them.

The short stories, “Turned”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Good Corn”, by H.E Bates provide strong examples of how the representation of characters influence’s the reader’s perception of a text. Both stories depict similar characters: a middle-aged, childless wife, her husband and an 18-year old girl who works for them. They are both about a similar situation: man cheats on wife with girl and girl falls pregnant. However, the author’s of the text are from very different backgrounds and this is reflected in their stories. Although there are many similarities between “The Good Corn” and “Turned”, the values reflected in these stories, their resolutions and the reader’s perception of them are vastly different due to the contexts of

This story was written in the first-person perspective. More specifically, the story is a dramatic monologue in which the narrator is responding to ambiguous questions asked by an ambiguous character. The narrator is a major participant taking part in the story as she is the main character, but she isn’t necessarily a reliable source of information because of her extremely emotional state of mind. She is repressing memories from the night of the incident and from her life in general, and this is shown when she says, “I hate to repeat it, my life” (41), and “I don’t want to talk about her” (43). The narrator is also highly unreliable because she isn’t even certain of the validity of the story she is telling. She says, “What? Did I say that?...Then maybe I do remember it, it’s all so confusing and…” (45). Because this story is first-person, we can know only what the narrator reveals. We don’t know the questions being asked of the narrator or the response of that person, and the narrator doesn’t always finish her sentences or thoughts, either. She drifts off and this is shown by the abundant use of ellipses. This is when the reader starts to speculate what is being left out of the narration. The narrator is repressing memories and refusing to talk about them, like when she says, “I don’t want to talk about it again” (41), so there is some

Vic is obsessed Alison because of the birthmark and is in love with her because she has it not because she is actually someone he cares about. There are lots of themes in this story including how love can be fake and being obsessed with fake things. “He dreamt of pilling her into the car and tearing out of town. They’d go north. He’d rescue her, love her, marry her” This quote shows imagery and characterisation which is used throughout the story. The author used techniques like this in the story because it helped describe what was going on and helped the reader relate to the characters and get the themes across. The author used these techniques because it made the audience relate to the characters and helped to tell the story, if he didn’t use heaps of imagery and made the characters good the readers wouldn’t relate to what he was trying to say because of that the messages he was trying to deliver through the themes wouldn’t come across to the readers. The story is also told in first person, this makes the audience relate to the narrator and the author did this to help him make the story more interesting because lots of stories are normally written in third

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.