{Cassie Lundgren ~ Examining the Appearance of con’t}
ENGLISH 1B
plenty of money and not have to worry. Isn’t it?” (Ibsen 1017). According to what Nora is telling her friend it seems as though she is quite happy with her life, but at the end of the play she ends up leaving her husband. This couple never has serious conversations within their marriage and Nora realizes that she has never had a chance to grow up and experience things on her own. She went from getting what she wants from a father- child relationship with her Daddy, to continuing the same relationship with her husband Torvald; now the father figure to Nora’s on-going child. Nora explains to Torvald, “Daddy used to tell me what he thought, then I thought the same. And if I thought differently, I kept quiet about it, because he wouldn’t have liked it…you arranged everything to your tastes, and I acquired the same tastes. Or I pretended to…” (1074). As Nora explains to her husband why she’s leaving, she breaks the silence she has been living with for many years from childhood through marriage.
thread that ties these three women together, even though the silence is different in each work. The women are not satisfied with the way they are living, and after being pushed around or not having a say, they finally find their voice in some manner that results in some sort of action. Whether it is accepting one’s true feelings, doing something about a problem and leaving, or snapping and putting an ending to one’s suffering completely, these women are all the same, and sadly not too different from all other silenced women.
Works Cited Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Literature, A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. Boston, 2010. 79-82. Print. Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Inside Literature: Reading, Responding, Arguing. Ed. Gwynn R. S., and Steven Zani. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 234-243. Print. Isben, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Inside Literature: Reading, Responding, Arguing. Ed. Gwynn R. S., and Steven Zani. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 1010-1079. Print.
People who profess to know John Wright in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles believe him to be a good man: “He didn’t drink, and kept his word as well as most…and paid his debts” (Glaspell 239). Because of this perception, most people didn’t see why Mrs. Wright would want to murder him. This play is different from “Story of an Hour” and “A Doll’s House” because Mrs. Wright doesn’t speak, yet she is talked about by the other two female characters in their attempt to figure out if she killed her husband and, if so, what her motive would have been. When neighbors Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters begin grabbing some things to take to Mrs. Wright in jail, they soon discover in her sewing box her dead canary whose neck appears to be wrung. The two ladies come to the conclusion that Mr. Wright strangled the bird; “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird – a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too” (240). According to Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, Mr. Wright was a cold and hard man. He most likely was controlling in the relationship and wanted everything his way or it wasn’t going to happen. Even Mr. Hale remarks, “I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John” (231). It appears Mrs. Wright kept silent and let everything slide by without speaking any words of protest, or standing up for her elf during their marriage. Yet as a seamstress who had been silently knotting quilts for a while, she became proficient at tying knots. While working with her hands she let all of her anger and resentment build up in her heart and mind, and was thus silent about her suffering. The day Mr. Wright killed her bird, because he couldn’t get some peace and quiet, is the day she starts to unravel. Finally undone, she ties a nice tight knot of “rope around his neck that choked the life out of him” (241). She ends her streak of silence by quietly tying one last strong knot that forever silences Mr. Wright.
Sin Ying Ma Portarit Type Multi Media
The appearance of love can be a puzzling situation. Things go on behind closed doors that no one ever imagines. Here we have seen how feminine silence is a common 40
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