La Vita Nuova

Paul Newman once said, “People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked” (74). There is no such thing as the perfect relationship, however, being involved in a healthy relationship is essential for a person to feel valued, safe, and happy. Unfortunately, in the situation of Kelly Sundberg’s personal essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” and Kate Chopin’s short story “The Story of An Hour,” include extreme examples of unhealthy relationships. The essay “It Will Look Like a Sunset,” shares painful experiences of Sundberg’s physical and emotional abusive relationship with her husband Caleb, while “The Story of an Hour,” shares a rare reaction of a married woman, Louise Mallard, who explores her emotions cautiously when hearing about the death of her husband. Each woman faces their own prison created by their husbands. The two marriages represent the figurative meaning of doors being locked in a marriage. Both pieces of literature convey the theme of confinement by using the literary devices of foreshadowing, imagery, and conflict.

In the short “Sula” by Toni Morrison, we watch two young girls grow up in a small town, the Bottom, and become unlikely friends. These girls, Sula and Nel, are as different as night and day, yet they are inseparable when they were young. They were only separated when Nel gets married to Jude, and Sula leaves the Bottom for ten years. These girls choose different lives, and each life has different connotations attached.

In spite of all the love they had for one other, and is sad that her husband is now dead, she is excited about the news that she will be free for the first time to do whatever she wanted. Instead of dreading the days ahead without her husband, she looks forward to them (Friedman,

The confessional mode of poetry delves into the inner struggles of the persona as she seeks creative independence, free from the constraints of her role as mother and daughter. The juxtaposition between the two settings, “the lit house and the town,” symbolises the persona’s desire for isolation as she contemplates her filial responsibilities relative to an innate desire for solitude, “wanting to be myself alone.” Dobson’s biblical allusion to Peter’s betrayal of Jesus in “Three times I took that lonely stretch,/ Three times the dark trees closed me round” utilises anaphora to indicate her prolonged attempts to embrace her creative potential. Writing in a period of social and gender re-evaluation during the 1960s, Dobson gives us insight into the way women were struggling to balance career against the patriarchal expectations of motherhood. The night, free from daily pressures metaphorically “absolves me of my bonds” creating a lighter sense of being, which is reinforced in the synecdoche “only my footsteps held the ground.” However, the use of conduplicatio in “One life behind and one before” represents her feeling of entrapment, as he remains in a conflicted state. The emotive language in “cut off… from love that grows about the bone” captures the confronting nature of her discovery by examining the

Anyone who receives notice of a loved ones death is never expected to take it lightly. In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard is informed of her husbands “death” as gently as possible, and immediately she understands the enormous significance this loss will have on her life. Unlike many widow’s, her feelings of utter devastation do not last. Mrs. Mallard’s sobs of loss turn to cries of joy after she reflects upon her own character and discovers truths about her marriage.

Women are taught from a young age that marriage is the end all be all in happiness, in the short story “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin and the drama “Poof!” by Lynn Nottage, we learn that it is not always the case. Mrs. Mallard from “The Story of an Hour” and Loureen from “Poof!” are different characteristically, story-wise, and time-wise, but share a similar plight. Two women tied down to men whom they no longer love and a life they no longer feel is theirs. Unlike widows in happy marriages Loureen and Mrs., Mallard discover newfound freedom in their respective husband’s deaths. Both stories explore stereotypical housewives who serve their husbands with un-stereotypical reactions to their husband’s deaths.

Sonja Livingston is a talented and unique young writer who uses an unusual structure in her work. Structure is the form that an author’s writing takes; how the sentences are formed and how they are placed together to create the work. In Ghostbread, her award-winning novel, Ms. Livingstone uses a freeform chapter structure that, while roughly in chronological order, is not necessarily linear. In chapter 3, Ms. Livingston speaks of her father, “I had no father” (6), and then in chapter 4 she speaks of a childhood friend, “My favorite person should have been Carol Johnson.” (7) Through the course of the book, Ms. Livingston chronicles her life from birth to age 18, but it is not a strict telling; she meanders and explores events as they are remembered, not bound by a rigid timeline. The structure of her work is unconventional and through that unconventional structure she gives the reader an experience that is more like poetry than a conventional novel. Towards the end of Ghostbread, Ms. Livingston contemplates the effect that her miscarriage and the revelation of her sexual activity will have on her relationship with her mother with this passage, “Sex. Pregnancy. Men. What were they to her? Failure? Freedom? Power? Paths she followed, but did not prescribe. At least not aloud.” (212). The use of partial sentences and imagery are elements commonly associated with poetry and it gives

Amanda is obsessed with her past, and uses it to escape reality, as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of the time she received seventeen gentlemen callers. The reader cannot even be sure that this actually happened. However, it is clear despite its possible falseness, Amanda has come to believe it. She refuses to acknowledge that her daughter is crippled and refers to her handicap as "a little defect - hardly noticeable" (Williams 1648). Only for brief moments does she ever admit that her daughter is "crippled" and then resorts back to denial. Amanda doesn't perceive anything realistically. She believes that this gentleman caller, Jim is going to be the man to rescue Laura and she hasn't even met him yet. When Jim arrives, Amanda is dressed in a "girlish frock" she wore on the day that she met their father and she regresses to the childish, giddy days of entertaining gentleman callers. Amanda uses her past as a means to escape the reality she does not want to face.

In both Judy Brady’s “I want a wife” and Rebecca Curtis’s “Twenty Grand,” the reader is given a glimpse into the lives of two families living in different worlds but sharing many similar situations. Both families in the two-story show the environment that they are living in. Through the author’s use of irony, repetition, and tone, it becomes clear that I feel more sympathy for the mother in the story “Twenty Grand”.

In “The Other Paris,” two characters, Carol and Howard Mitchell are soon-to-be married young adults whose actions are completely influenced by the norms of society. The author, Mavis Gallant, provides clear social commentary on the societal influences on marriage through satirical uses of irony and mockery, the use of a omniscient narrator, and substantial characterization of the relationship between the couple to show the reader how ridiculous and formulaic the “pillars of marriage” can be, and how society ultimately determines which aspects of these pillars receive emphasis.

Gallant’s use of sarcasm establishes narrative voice, and it turn provides social commentary on the shallowness of modern marriages. Gallant states that “From a series of helpful college lectures, she [Carol] learned that a common interest, such as a liking for Irish Setters, was the true basis for happiness,... Similar economic backgrounds, financial security, belonging to the same church - these were the pillars of the married union.” Gallant uses sarcasm to convey that these college lectures were not helpful at all. In fact, the college lectures - a symbol for society - spouts absurd facts about happiness in a marriage.

In The Awakening, Edna Pontellier a wife and mother of two was at first very uptight and obedient as was the way of American culture. She was clearly unhappy, but diligently fulfilled worked toward fulfilling her role of a ‘mother-woman’. As a result of her husband’s absence due to his preoccupation with work, Edna spent most of her time adapting to Creole customs that she picked up from Adele Ratignolle, a woman who was admired for being the epitome of a ‘mother-woman’. Edna even engaged in an innocent romance with a character named Robert whom she later fell in love with. During the family’s summer vacation Edna experienced an ‘awakening’, she ignored the existence of her children and frolicked with the chivalric men of the town whom she shared physical attractions with. The shared companionship between Edna and Robert stirs up emotions she had never felt with her husband. She even started to take up her past time of painting as she had enjoyed during her youth, and often relived memories of her joyful youth experiences. Edna’s husband noticed a shift in her attitude and distance, and sought advice from Dr. Mandelet. The doctor instructed Mr. Pontellier to let his wife’s defiance play its course and she would come back around. He does as instructed, but her antics only became more severe.

After noticing that the new classmate has been sitting alone at lunch, Amanda tried to introduce herself to him, however, Raphael couldn’t understand her. Amanda did not give up, later that day, Amanda used Google Translate

Not all artists use characters or gods which symbolize beauty and fertility in their masterpieces, although Botticelli certainly did in his piece La Primavera. Botticelli, an artist during the early piece of the Renaissance, was an artist unlike any seen before. Botticelli was trained under the apprenticeship of Filippo Lippi, who was a famous Medici, or a member of a political dynasty or family with much power during the Renaissance. Individualism, classical naturalism, and scientific naturalism were all important aspects of the Renaissance time period, which helped it to differ from the previous Medieval times. Botticelli’s artwork, especially La Primavera, was very individualistic, which set him apart from the other artists that came before

On the literal level, the speaker remembers a time where she was carried off and eloped with a man called Death and his partner in crime, Immortality. Not realizing that going with Death meant that she would have to leave this world and live with him in his house forever, she shows herself as being immature at