"Boys and Girls"
Jan. 19th, 2012 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nikkiaPart I
In her story “Boys and Girls,” Alice Munro makes the differences between the farm and cellar, the kitchen, and the upstairs bedroom very clear, using the narrator of the story to describe these places. The farm where her father works is centered around the fox pens, the narrator describes them as “tidy and ingenious” expressing her care for her father’s work place and the way he takes care of it. The cellar is described as being bright and white, and the smell as being reassuring. The kitchen, her mother’s domain, is described as being “hot and dark” and it feels like the narrator despises its sameness despite the fact that she enjoys working outside because of its ritualistic importance, which hints at a sameness there as well. The bedroom where the children sleep is the place where the children are most afraid; the unfinished room where “the things that nobody has any use for any more” are kept.There are many binaries illustrated in this story. forexample,the farm is obviously somewhere the narrator feels important while the bedroom is a place where un-useful things are keptit is been addressed that the farm is clean and the kitchen is cluttered, the kitchen is dark and the cellar is bright. Munro makes various other comments but these are the ones that captured my attention.
Part II
Thomas Hardy character Eustacia Vye is quite similar with the character of Jenny in “The Boat,” by Alistair MacLeod. They are both town beauties and they are frustrated about their husbands for their love of literature. Eustacia’s husband teaches instead of selling diamonds, while Jenny’s man wants to be educated at University instead of fishing the sea. At the end of both stories the women meet tragic endings; Eustacia killing herself because of the quilt of the death of her mother-in-law, and Jenny lived in an empty house and refused anybodys help because of her pride.
“Moby Dick,” by Herman Melville is a novel about revenge, obsession, and the damage both of these things can do. Sailors Ishmael, Queequeg, and Starbuck join one-legged Captain Ahab on his crazed hunt for the great whale Moby Dick so that he can exact his revenge on the creature for taking his leg. When they finally do find the whale the fight that ensues kills everyone except for the narrator of the story, Ishmael. This story has become a classic and has been reproduced in a variety of ways since it was published in 1851.
Jenny and her “kind” in “The Boat,” Charles Dickens’ character Ham Peggotty (from “David Copperfield) loves the sea. Ham lives with his uncle Daniel Peggotty and his finance and cousin Little Em’ly because both of them have been orphaned. Em’ly leaves Ham for another man, and Ham later drowns rescuing this other man, Steerforth, who has deserted Em’ly. Ham suffers more than almost anyone in the novel, as most of the other characters are granted a happy ending.
In her story “Boys and Girls,” Alice Munro makes the differences between the farm and cellar, the kitchen, and the upstairs bedroom very clear, using the narrator of the story to describe these places. The farm where her father works is centered around the fox pens, the narrator describes them as “tidy and ingenious” expressing her care for her father’s work place and the way he takes care of it. The cellar is described as being bright and white, and the smell as being reassuring. The kitchen, her mother’s domain, is described as being “hot and dark” and it feels like the narrator despises its sameness despite the fact that she enjoys working outside because of its ritualistic importance, which hints at a sameness there as well. The bedroom where the children sleep is the place where the children are most afraid; the unfinished room where “the things that nobody has any use for any more” are kept.There are many binaries illustrated in this story. forexample,the farm is obviously somewhere the narrator feels important while the bedroom is a place where un-useful things are keptit is been addressed that the farm is clean and the kitchen is cluttered, the kitchen is dark and the cellar is bright. Munro makes various other comments but these are the ones that captured my attention.
Part II
Thomas Hardy character Eustacia Vye is quite similar with the character of Jenny in “The Boat,” by Alistair MacLeod. They are both town beauties and they are frustrated about their husbands for their love of literature. Eustacia’s husband teaches instead of selling diamonds, while Jenny’s man wants to be educated at University instead of fishing the sea. At the end of both stories the women meet tragic endings; Eustacia killing herself because of the quilt of the death of her mother-in-law, and Jenny lived in an empty house and refused anybodys help because of her pride.
“Moby Dick,” by Herman Melville is a novel about revenge, obsession, and the damage both of these things can do. Sailors Ishmael, Queequeg, and Starbuck join one-legged Captain Ahab on his crazed hunt for the great whale Moby Dick so that he can exact his revenge on the creature for taking his leg. When they finally do find the whale the fight that ensues kills everyone except for the narrator of the story, Ishmael. This story has become a classic and has been reproduced in a variety of ways since it was published in 1851.
Jenny and her “kind” in “The Boat,” Charles Dickens’ character Ham Peggotty (from “David Copperfield) loves the sea. Ham lives with his uncle Daniel Peggotty and his finance and cousin Little Em’ly because both of them have been orphaned. Em’ly leaves Ham for another man, and Ham later drowns rescuing this other man, Steerforth, who has deserted Em’ly. Ham suffers more than almost anyone in the novel, as most of the other characters are granted a happy ending.
