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University of Rio Grande

Healing the Break:

Examining My Voices as a WriterA Senior Portfolio

Sydney M. Smith

Literature and Writing Seminar English 49003

Dr. April Julier & Dr. Heather Duda

14 November 2013

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Table of Content

Healing the Break: Examining My Voices as a Writer:

A Self-Reflective Essay…………………………………………………………….….pg 3

Timed Writing Piece: ENG 25203……………………………………………………...pg 6

Educating the Deaf:Public verse Residential Schools for the Deaf:

ENG 11203……………………………………………………………………………..pg 12

A&P as a Modern Symbol: ENG 24103………………………………………………..pg 18

“We are a City upon a Hill”: A Critical Analysis of A Modell of Christian Charity by John Winthrop: ENG 25103…………………………………………………………………pg 23

Daughters of Eve: The Defiance of Sexual and Social Norms: ENG 26103………….pg 27

Tristan and Isolde as A Character Basis for The Arthurian Tales: ENG 24803………pg 38

How to Teach Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: ENG 26203…………………………..pg 43

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre: ENG 44303……………………………………………pg 49

Beauty and the Beast: ENG 37103…………………………………………………….pg 58

Teaching Morality Through The Great Gatsby: ENG 25203…………………………pg 65

The Broken Voices: ENG 49003………………………………………………………pg 75

Introduction………………………………………………….pg 76 Stall Confessions…………………………………………….pg 77 Seeing Red…………………………………………………..pg81 Black & Blue………………………………………………...pg 85 Invisible……………………………………………………..pg 89

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Healing the Break: Examining My Voices as a Writer

Literature and Writing Seminar

31 October 2013

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can manage

change “Charles Darwin

In a person’s life there is one moment that forever alters their life and sets them on a

specific path. This moment defines them and molds the individual that they will become. That

moment came to me at the age of twelve; it was the moment when a phone rang to tell me

that my father had killed himself. The aftermath of that death left me devastated, I withdrew

into myself and depression overtook me. I was drowning in a sea of sadness and I couldn’t get

my head above the water. For six months I stayed that way until my seventh grade reading

teacher gave me a copy of J.K. Rowling’s, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. That book

taught me one truth, I had a choice I could let my grief destroy me or, like Harry Potter, I could

learn to adapt to my new reality, survive, and become the hero of my own story.

That choice was simple. I would not be a victim: I would be a survivor. To survive parts

of me had to change: I had to adapt. I kept the wounded parts of me buried deep within myself.

I took the parts that were left and put them together to create the person that people would

see from that point onward. One of the things that helped to stitch the leftover parts of myself

back together was being able to create stories that let me vent the turmoil that was left inside

of me. A creative voice immerged from the parts of my soul that I had to bury, it was the only

time the secret parts of me were allowed to be shown. Without the creation of my creative

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voice the public image I showed to the world would not have been able to exist. I needed that

secret part of myself to survive.

As the years passed I continued to adapt myself to my ever changing environment in

order to thrive in my surroundings. When I reached my freshman year of college I once again

had to adapt but unlike the other times this time it wasn’t a change of personality or an altering

of emotion. Upon entering college I had no academic voice, my voice had always been creative

in nature which didn’t serve me because I needed to be able to research and analyze new

material. This was an obstacle for me, because I could no longer just create stories to vent my

feelings, I had to create a voice that was able to look at a text and analyze and critic it, I needed

a voice that sounded professional and was professional and up to that point I didn’t have that

voice. In order to survive this new challenge I would not need to change but I would need to

create this new voice. That is what I did, I created my academic voice and like a child that voice

needed to grow and develop in order to survive.

This collection of work is that maturation of my academic voice. Each piece exemplifies

the progression of that voice. The organization of this portfolio is tracking the creation of that

voice and the growth up until this point in my academic career. Because of this my pieces are

arranged by what I deem my weakest to my strongest. Each piece is chosen specifically to show

the growth that my voice has undergone and to highlight the best and worst moments in my

writing. This portfolio shows the bumps and bruises of my academic voices childhood and

allows the reader to see that the injuries and scars from that childhood taught me how to

mature that voice into mature and proactive adult. The weakest piece in this portfolio is my

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paper from Literary Imagination, it was the first paper I wrote in my academic voice, and it was

hard for me to separate my personal opinion and look at what the textual evidence was

showing me. At the time of this piece I didn’t know how to separate the two, opinion and fact,

and this piece highlights that issues I was trying to overcome. My strongest piece is my

American Literature 2 paper. This piece was my strongest because it is the convergence of all of

the things I had learned. I figured out how to work things I was passionate about into a paper

and how to use the text to drive the paper instead of letting the text drive me. The papers in

between just offer the struggle of the maturation and development of that academic voice.

My senior project, titled The Broken Voices, takes the reader in a different direction. It is

a collection of short stories. These stories are about topics that effect teens and young adults

today, such as, rape, suicide, drug abuse, and domestic violence. Similar to myself when dealing

with my grief, each character is living with a secret or a life changing event and in order for

them to survive they choose to live two separate lives, the one the world sees and the one that

happens behind closed doors. Though this is still a work in progress I am hoping that when the

reader has finished the or she will at least think twice before making their judgments, because

everybody is fighting a battle the outside world knows nothing about. These stories highlight

that decision to survive, and not to let the bad things in life destroy them. I chose to add this

collection to my portfolio because it shows the creative voice that I have always had, but it also

shows the core of who I am. The part of me that I buried within is also the part that gives me

my creative voice. I wanted to add this section in order for the reader to understand that I have

two halves of self, the one half (the creative) shows what I was given from birth and experience,

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and the other is my academic voice which was created and developed because I needed to

survive in a world that required this self.

This portfolio is a journey. It shows the creation and growth of my academic voice but it

also shows the other part of me. This portfolio allowed me to bridge the gap between my

academic voice and creative voice and it made me whole, and though that is not what I started

out to do, it is what I now hope to show the reader. If the reader can see the two sides that are

me becoming whole again, then I accomplished my end goal for this portfolio and it gives me

reason to be proud of what I have accomplished.

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Educating the Deaf

Public verse Residential Schools for the Deaf

Composition 2

8 July 2012

It is heard for a deaf child to go anywhere and be themselves because they will get stared

at and sometimes even treated different. Most hearing people will stare at the deaf like something

is wrong with them just because they have never seen someone sign before. When a hearing

person does this it will make a deaf person very uncomfortable unless they have gotten used to

this. That is why it is more beneficial for a deaf child to go to a residential deaf school rather

than mainstreaming, home schooling, or going to an oral school. There are many causes to why a

child should not go to a mainstreaming school, get home schooled, or go to an oral school, just

like there are many causes to why a deaf child should go to a residential deaf school. Among all

the causes for these schools there are also many effects to them also.

A cause for why a student should not go to a mainstreaming school is that if a deaf child

goes to a mainstreaming school then the deaf child will not be able to ask questions if he/she gets

lost because the other students and most of the staff will not be able to understand what the child

is saying because he/she will be using ASL (American Sign Language). This can make it very

hard for a deaf child because the child cannot communicate with anyone to try to get help or find

where they need to go.

There are many effects to a deaf child going to a mainstreaming school. One of these

effects would be that this child would not have any friends that he/she can compare with because

most of the students are going to be hearing and will not be able to understand what the deaf

child is saying. If a deaf child has no one to associate with and to compare to he/she will feel out

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of place and could get depressed. Another effect of a deaf child going to a mainstreaming school

would be that people might make fun of him/her because they cannot hear and have to use ASL

(American Sign Language) to communicate with people (Lynas , 1999 ) .

.Most hearing people do not understand what the deaf person is doing because all they are using

are there hands to communicate with. The last effect that I have for why a deaf child should not

mainstream is because when the child is in class and the teacher turns around to write something

on the board then the only information that the child is getting is what the teachers is writing on

the board. Also it is very hard for a deaf person to learn how to read lips because for one some

people talk to fast and for two some words look the same when you say them. So when a deaf

child is in class they are more than likely only getting little bits of what the teacher is saying

because he/she cannot read lips very well or because the teacher talking too fast for he/she she

catch every word. “Keep in mind that only 25-30% of spoken English can be lip read

(Go l ds t e in , S im onds & S ande r s , 1994 ) .

A cause for why deaf children should not get home schooled is because a parent cannot

teach a deaf child everything he/she needs to learn. Even if the Child’s parents are deaf the deaf

parent’s cannot teach them everything they need to know because more than likely the parents do

not know everything they need to teach a deaf child. A deaf child still needs to learn all the

basics such as math, science, history, reading etc. Even for a hearing student the parents would

not know every subject they need to learn.

There are also many effects to why a deaf child should not get home schooled. One of

these effects is that if a deaf child gets home schooled they will never really learn social skills

until they are old enough to move out. Any child weather they are deaf or hearing need to have

social skills. A deaf child needs to know that there are other people that are like him/her other

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people with whom they can identify ( "De a f home schoo l ing , " 1997 ) . They need to

have friends that understand them and get them and being home schooled gives a deaf child none

of that. Another effect would be that if a deaf child gets home schooled and gets home schooled

there whole life they more than likely will not have many friends, so this might lead to them

never wanting to leave their parents’ home, so then the deaf child would never really learn how

to socialize and also they child would never have a real job because they cannot move away from

his/her parents’ house.

There are causes to why you should not send your child to an oral school and one of those

causes are they do not let the deaf use ASL (American Sign Language) they have to actually talk.

It is sometimes very hard for a deaf person to talk because they “cannot monitor the volume and

tone of their speech and may be initially hard to understand (Go l ds t e in , S im onds &

S ande r s , 1994 ) . Most deaf people are also embarrassed by the way they talk because it will

usually sound different than how a hearing person can talk. Also deaf people do not like to talk

because then hearing people think that just because a deaf person can talk that they can also hear

to, so a hearing person will talk back to a deaf person and the deaf person cannot understand

what they are saying.

There are also effects to why deaf children should not go to an oral school. One effect

would be that oral schools were made up because Alexander Graham Bell thought that deaf

people were going to contaminate the human race even though his wife was deaf. He also

thought that deaf people should not be able to intermarry because he did not want them do bring

another deaf person into this world (Woo l s ey , H a r r i son & Garde ne r , 2004 ) .

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Another reason a deaf child should not go to an oral school is because they cannot use ASL

(American Sign Language) and that is part of deaf person’s heritage. With a deaf child going to

an oral school it is like take away part of their heritage and culture.

There are many causes as to why a deaf child should go to a residential school. One of

those causes is that they get to be around people that are like them rather than people that are not

like them. If they go to a residential school they will not have people stare at them like there is

something wrong with them they also will not get made fun of because they are dead and have to

use ASL (American Sign Language) to communicate with people. They also will be able to ask

anyone for help if something happens unlike at a mainstreaming school.

There are also many effects to why you should send a deaf child to a residential school

rather than any other type of schooling. An effect would be that they would be able to interact

with people that are just like them, they will not have to worry about what other people are

saying about them. They will have some where that they feel they will fit in at. Also anther effect

is that if they go to a residential school they will be able to make friends and most of the time the

friends that they make they stay friends. But if they went to a mainstreaming if would be difficult

for them to have friends that could understand what they are telling them and more than likely

they would not remain friends after they graduated. Another effect would be that they would be

able to actually learn rather than guessing what they teachers are saying because at a residential

school they would have teachers that knew ASL (American Sign Language) and these teachers

would know not to turn around and write assignments and notes on the board because they would

not be able to see what she was signing.

All in all deaf children should go to a residential school where they can learn that right

material that is needed to go onto college. Also so they can learn how to socialize with people

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that are like them rather than people that do not understand. A residential school would be the

best fit for a deaf child to go to school for all of his/ her years of schooling. IDEA guarantees that

children with disabilities get an education that is in a “least restrictive” environment ( "U. s

depa r t men t o f , " 2011 ) . Each parent must decide what least restrictive means for his or her

own child.

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Work C i t ed

De a f hom e s choo l i ng . ( 1997 ) . Re t r i eved f rom

h t tp : / /w w w. l i s t en -up .o rg / edu /hom es choo l . h tm

Gol ds t e in , T . , S i monds , C . , & S ande r s , C . ( 1994 , O c tobe r ) . Succe ed ing

toge t her :peop le w i th d i s ab i l i t i e s i n t he work p lace . Re t r i eved f rom

h t tp : / /w w w.c sun . e du /~s p20558 /d i s / ac knowl edgem en t . h tm l

Lynas , W. (1999 ) . S uppor t i ng the de a f ch i l d i n t he ma i ns t r eam s choo l : i s

t he r e a be s t w ay? . Suppor t f o r L earn i ng , 14 (3 ) , 115 -116 .

66 .

U.s depar tm en t o f j u s t i c e Am er i c ans w i th D iab i l i t i e s ac t . ( 2011 , Oc tobe r

17 ) . Re t r i eved f rom h t tp : / /w w w.ada .gov / inde x .h tml

Woo l s ey , M . L . , H a r r i son , T . J . , & Garde ne r , R . ( 2004 ) . A p re l i mina ry

exam ina t ion o f i n s t ruc t iona l a r r angem en t , t e ach i ng behav i o r s , l eve l s o f

a ca demic r e s pond ing o f dea f m idd le sc hoo l s tuden t s i n t h r ee d i f f e r en t

educa t iona l se t t i ngs . Educa t ion and T re a tm en t o f Ch i ld r en , 27 (3 ) , 265 -

266 .

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A&P as A Modern Symbol

Literary Imagination

17 February 2010

In the story “A&P” by John Updike introduces the character of Sammy. He is a nineteen

year old who is working at a supermarket as a cashier. The first detail presented about Sammy is

how he notices a particular girl among a group of girls who enters the store where he works.

“The one that (caught) my eye” (Updike 268), these girls are the beginning of a process in which

Sammy is “rehumanized” after years of being dehumanized by the society in which he lives and

works. He begins to reconsider what he has always known to be true or right. The point I will

make is that Sammy’s sexual interest in the girls, particularly one girl, Queenie, has a major

effect on how Sammy visualizes the world, and what the store represents.

In the beginning of the story Sammy is totaling the purchases of a woman. “She’s one of

these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows,

and I know it made her day to trip me up” (Updike 267). While he is in the process of totaling

the sale, he notices three young women entering the store dressed in nothing but bathing suits.

Because of their attire his attention is drawn to them and he visually follows them throughout the

store. Upon their entrance into the store, these girls pique nothing more in Sammy than his

sexual interest, but as he visually follows them he starts to notice things about the girls that make

him think of them in a different light. At the beginning of the story, these girls are something to

look at, yet they are different because of their choice of attire. Although, initially, he is drawn to

them for their attire, he notices that they are moving against the crowd. These three girls are

disrupting everyone by their simple display of rebellion. As Sammy says, “These sheep pushing

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their carts down the aisle-the girls were walking against the usual traffic (not that we have a one

way sign or anything)- were pretty hilarious” (Updike 269).

Because of these attractive girls Sammy begins seeing himself in a better, less mechanical

world. In this world, the machine does not have a voice that overshadows a human being. By

working at A&P he is conforming or being dehumanized by the continuous rotation and the

overall routine of the job he is performing. Because of the girls he starts to see the people in his

environment differently. These girls are forcing the other shoppers to move from their usual

patterns. The people stop and stare to see why the girls are so different. They cannot ignore the

girls’ clothing or the way they are moving against the regular traffic patterns in the store. The

girls are showing him a world where he wants to be, a world where he does not have to sit back

and look at females as an attraction. They offer him a different reality in a world where he does

not have to work so hard for so little pay to make his family and society happy. In on part of the

story as he is describing Queenie and her life he makes fun of his own life by saying that his

family thinks it’s big when they have a certain cup from which they drink. He makes an

assumption about Queenie and the other girls’ lives. He assumes that they must come from a

higher socioeconomic class than he does even though he has no actual proof that this is so. A

part of the story suggests that he begins to view the girls differently when one of them begins to

talk. “All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room” (Updike 270). He

describes her family and her life based solely on hearing her speak a few words. He had once

believed that the girls were attainable, but he now realizes that they are above him. He thinks that

they are way above his status in society and therefore unattainable.

He begins to have these hero thoughts; he at one point of the story calls himself their

“unsuspected hero” (Updike 271). He quits in front of them, hoping they will notice the heroic

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action he has taken to defend their honor, and from this be welcomed into their lives. He does not

quit just to gain their attention. However, by quitting he is going against everything he was

taught to believe and everything for which he has works. The idea that he will never again have a

life that is easy. The hardest thing to do is go against the grain to gain independence. In life we

have been taught that there is only one to achieve success, to stay in the mainstream, to not lash

out through rebellion, and to do what is expected. Lengel, the boss, tells Sammy, “Sammy, you

don’t want to do this to your Mom and Dad”(Updike 271”, referring to the fat that if Sammy

quits he is going to disappoint his parents. This suggests that by quitting his job he will somehow

be seen as a failure and thus embarrass his parents. According to Lengel, his parents will

experience disappointment because he no longer wanted to work at a store in town.

In a critique of this story, Timothy Sexton, suggests that the supermarket itself is a

symbol (Sexton 1). As supermarket is the only store where all classes can go to purchase

products regardless of socioeconomic status. The supermarket is an everyday occurrence. What it

offers is what everyone needs despite money or status. In the story, Updike, makes it a point to

say that the store is in the center of town near the bank, a real estate office, and a church. It is

centered among the everyday needs of the community. The bank is the financial center of town.

The church is the religious center of town. The real estate office is the means by which this

community houses its residents. Having the supermarket in the middle of town around everyday

things makes it so people look at it as an everyday necessity. It is in the cultural heart of the

town. Going to these places is a human routine. We have been given a routine in life and now

that Sammy sees this routine, he chooses not to like it. Although the supermarket is important, it

is the meaning of the environment when it is combined with Sammy’s viewpoint that gives the

supermarket its greatest importance. To him, quitting is to obtain a false hope, similar to what we

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get when we pick up a can of food we have never eaten before just because the picture is pretty.

Once we actually taste the food it is not what we imagined it would be. That is how the girls are

to him; they are objects representing a life he wants, a life he cannot have unless he quits the

store. In reality Sammy cannot have these things. They are unattainable because his job and the

people around him make it impossible for him to have them.

He first sees the girl that he describes as “chunky” as someone with which he might

achieve a relationship. She is not the everyday definition of beautiful. As the story progresses,

you see him start to dream bigger by fantasizing about Queenie. She is the symbolic meaning of

everything he wants. By quitting he is trying to make the statement that he can be what a man of

worth is according to the social norms. He is rebelling against the accepted viewpoints on

socioeconomic status and how to achieve success in this country. By impressing these girls he

wants to prove to himself and other around him that he can be more.

In conclusion, Sammy is a character who represents everyone in the middle and lower

classes. He is the one who works every day to be something that society says he cannot be.

Despite this he tries, in a manner that is somewhat heroic in nature. The girls are his out. They

represent the life he wants and then becomes the reason he quits. The supermarket is a

representation of everything that people need and a comparison to the way he sees the girls. “I go

through the punches, 4,9,GROC, TOT- it’s more complicated than you thing, and after you do it

often enough, it begins to make a little song, that you hear words to , in my case “Hello (bing)

there, you(gung) hap-py pee-pul(splat)”(Updike 271). These objects have become more human,

then the people working them. John Updike captured everything that the store and America tell

people and all of the false hopes and promises that people in society are faced with everyday but

will never obtain.

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Work Cited

Sexton, Timothy. “John Updikes A&P: Selling False Hope and Promises”. 31 Jan 2006. 17 Feb

2010.<http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/19459/john_updikes_ap_selling_false_h

opes_pg3.html?cat=38> Web.

Updike, John. “A&P” Exploring Literature. Madden, Frank, Ed. New York, Pearson Education,

2004. 267-271. Print

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“We are a City upon a Hill”: An Critical Analysis of

A Modell of Christian Charity by John Winthrop

American Literature 1

9 October 2013

The people in America before 1776 saw themselves very differently than what an American

would see his/her self today. An individual will identify themselves b where they are from

geographically, first and foremost. From there it breaks into religion, family, and ideologies. The

people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did not see themselves as only European but instead

chose to identify themselves by their religion. By coming to America they shifted from

identifying themselves by a geographical location to identifying themselves by their religious

faith. In John Winthrop’s, A Modell of Christian Charity the reader sees this shift in the

identification of their self. The Puritans no longer saw themselves as an extension of their

geographical homeland but chose to identify themselves with their religious faith. They became

known as singularly Puritan, and that viewpoint changed how they not only saw themselves but

how the world would see them. In the eyes of the world around them they were no longer

European but Puritan.

This shift in identity shifted before they hit the soil in America, their intention was never

to remain European. In Edmund S. Morgan’s, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John

Winthrop, he talks about why the Puritans chose to leave England, why they decided to form

their own society on what they thought God was demanding of them, “They had left England

because England was failing in its promise. In high hope that God was guiding them and would

find their efforts acceptable, they had proposed to form a new society” (61). The Puritans chose

to separate themselves from where they came from in order to keep the presences and the

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blessings of God in their lives. In Winthrop’s, A Modell of Christian Charity he groups together

the whole of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, “First, to hold conformity with the rest of his

workers” (155). Winthrop combines the whole of the colony together saying they are one. This

meaning that how he describes himself and how he sees his self-image is how he sees his

community as a whole. He later states that they must see themselves as their own city, “For wee

must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are upon us, soe that

if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe cause him to

withdrawe his present help from us” (Winthrop 166).

The Puritans wanted to wash their hands of the identity of being European because they

saw the European country as being sinful and flawed. In Perry Miller’s The Wrath of Jehovah he

describes the reasons for leaving, “The Great Migration thought of itself as achieving corporate

identity by the act of migrating, but it did not identify the covenant- its promise of good virtue

and of evil to vice- with the opportunity of America. Any place in the world would have served.

Massachusetts was only a convenient (not to convenient) platform on which the gathering might

be enacted, so that the city upon a hill would be visible to Europe” (Miller 25). This statement

allows the reader to see that by choosing to leave their homeland they were choosing to

completely break away from the identity of that of an Englishman. They went to America

because it was one of the only options left to them, it could have been any other place in the

world and it would have been the same result. “Lord our God may blesse us in the land whither

wee goe to possesse it. But if our heartes shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasures

and profits, and serve them; it propunded unto us this day, we shall surely perishe our of the

good Land whither wee passé over this vast sea to possesse it: (Winthrop 166). The Puritans

separated their identity from geography as soon as they landed on foreign soil, and once they did

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that their self-image became primarily a Puritan and not an Englishman. They feared the English

were damned for their tainted religion and because of the fear of the wrath of God on the English

they no longer wanted to group themselves as English.

In John Winthrop’s, A Modell of Christian Charity, there is a clear change in how the

society of Massachusetts Bay saw themselves. In England they were English first and Puritan

second. Due to the fear the England was damned, and the oppression that was barring them from

practicing their religious lifestyles the Puritans decided to leave. Instead of feeling defeated by

the fact that they would need to leave their home they decided to strike out and find a new home,

one in which they would form the rules. The Puritans still saw themselves, geographically as

English, but the decision to leave defined and decided that their self-image would no longer be

that of just English but would be primarily that of their religion. They were the Puritans, that was

the image that they owned and the image that generations after them would know them as, they

are not known to this generation as European Puritans, but as Puritans. The people that came to

America before 1776 may have come from different locations but the image and identity that

would define them would be that of their religion, and this is how the people of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony saw themselves, as Puritans.

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Work Cited

Miller, Perry. "The Wrath of Jehovah." The New England Mind. London: Belknap Press, n.d.

19-25. Print.

Morgan, Edmund S. "A Special Commission." The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John

Winthrop. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 1999. 61-69. Print.

Winthrop, John. “A Modell of Christian Charity.” The Bedford Anthology of American

Literature:Volume One, Beginnings to 1865. Eds. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 155-166. Print.

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Daughters of Eve: The Defiance of Sexual and Social Norms

British Literature 1

6 December 2012

In British Literature, from the beginning of the written word to the Romantic Era, the

characters change to fit the era to which they belong. For example in Beowulf the character of

Beowulf is strong, fearless, and in search for fame. He is the embodiment of what men of his

time were supposed to be in that era. The same can be said of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight. Male characters of these times embraced the norms of society, they did not deny

them. Unlike the males, female characters, not all but some, deified the norms of their sex and

their society. Where they were supposed to be weak they were strong, where they were supposed

to be meek and thoughtless, they created their own stories. Three female characters not only

defied the norms of their sex and society but blossomed in their defiance. Shakespeare’s’ Viola

from Twelfth Night, Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Wife of Bath, and finally Margery Kempe, not

only defied the norms but became the heroines of their own stories. In this paper I am going to

discuss each of these women, what there purpose is, and how each defied their society and sex in

some form. In the case of the Wife of Bath the subject of marriage and where the power of that

union must fall is the norm that she defies. Viola, defies the ideas of what a woman’s place in the

world, by choosing to dress as a male and work for a duke. Margery Kempe, defies the ideas of

how a religious woman has to live her life, that a woman on a religious path and be wife and

mother, as well as a loyal servant to God. In this paper I am going to be discussing the

differences in their choices versus the norms set by society on what a woman’s place is in each of

the areas that these characters defy and how those grievances have influence women in today’s

society.

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I will be starting with Geoffrey Chaucer’s Wife of Bath first. Allison of Bath is a woman

described as:

“In all the parish not a dame dared stir

Towards the alter steps in front of her,

And if indeed they did, so wrath was she

As to be quite put out of charity.

Her kerchiefs were of finely woven ground;

I dared have sworn they weighed a good ten pound,

The ones she wore on Sunday, on her head.

Her hose were of the finest scarlet red

And gartered tight; her shoes were soft and new.

Bold was her face, handsome, and red in hue.” (Chaucer 15)

Allison of Bath is described as a woman of temper and of means. In this era it was uncommon to

meet with a woman who was independently wealthy and independent. This makes Allison of

Bath a woman in violation of her sex and society due to her large income in a society where men

held the money and women ran the household. The narrator goes on to tell the reader that:

“She’d had five husbands, all at the church door,

Apart from other company in youth;

No need just now to speak of that, forsooth.”(Chaucer 15)

This tells the reader that unlike most of the women in her time who married once, usually by and

arrangement, Allison of Bath married five times. It is also hinted at that before her marriages she

had been in the company of other men in her youth. This would have been deemed scandalous in

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the era this was written.

The wife of Bath, as told in her story, has a different view on marriage then what is

deemed appropriate. Unlike most people of the time she finds nothing wrong with having

multiple marriages in one life span.

“ ‘Someone said recently for my persuasion

That as Christ only went to one occasion

To grace a wedding- in Cana of Galille-

He taught me by example there to see

That it is wrong to marry more than once.”(Chaucer 258-259)

Alison of Bath argues that marriage is a union carried out to produce offspring, and by

continuing to wed she has done noting wrong in marrying again after the death of each husband.

In the view of the Wife of Bath she is carrying out the order of the Lord by going into another

union in an attempt to bar a child. This is feat she has failed to do with each husband. Alison of

Bath also admits to not wanting to be celibate for long:

“Blessed be God that I have wedded five!

Welcome the sixth, whenever he appears

I can’t keep continent for years and years.

No sooner than one husbands’ dead and gone

Some other Christian man shall take me on,

For then, so says the Apostle, I am free

To wed, o’ God’s name, where it pleases me.”

(Chaucer 259)

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The Wife of Bath also does something that is uncommon in this era, she blatantly defies

her husband:

“And when I saw that he would never stop

Reading this cursed book, all night no doubt,

I suddenly grabbed and tore three pages out

Where he was reading, at the very place,

And fisted such a buffet in his face

That backwards down into our fire he fell. (Chaucer 279)

With this incident we come to the final violation to her sex. After her husband has hit her, Alison

acts as if she is dead, and in his upset over her laying there he promises her anything if she will

come back. She asks for one thing, sovereignty over herself, her household, and finally over him.

“And when I’d mastered him, and out of deadlock

Secured myself the sovereignty in wedlock,

And when he said “My own and truest wife,

Do as you please for the rest of your life,

But guard your honor and my good estate,”

From that day forward there was no debate.”

(Chaucer 280)

What does the Wife of Bath’s story have to offer the modern female? Without the story of

the Wife of Bath women may have never learned that it is okay to love again once your love has

died. She teaches us that you can have an opinion and state it, even if some will never agree with

you. Alison of Bath gives hope that love will find you again even when you deem it unlikely. She

gives us hope that we can stand on our own with no support from a man. That we can be

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independent and financially sound. She lets us know that we can be our own leader, even when

you have to get a little sly to gain that power.

The second character that I’m going to talk about is Shakespeare’s Viola from Twelfth

Night. Viola is a maiden casted ashore, after a ship wreck, upon a foreign land. Left to believe

her brother dead and having no money or a place to lay her head, Viola begins her defiance to her

sex. She chooses to become a servant to the Duke Orinso. Deciding to disguise herself as a man

instead of remaining a female and going to work for the Countess Olivia, Viola makes a choice

to defy her upbringing.

“Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become

The form of my intents. I’ll serve the duke.

Though shall present me as a eunuch to him.

It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing

And speak to him in many sorts of music

That will allow me very worth his service.

What else may hap, to time I will commit.

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.”

(Shakespeare 13)

This is a defiance to the norms the society of her sex. In this era a woman of her class would not

have worked and would most definitely not attire themselves in men’s clothing.

Another grievance is becoming a messenger to the Duke. Viola is sent alone on several

occasions to deliver messages to Countess Olivia. At this time a woman of her station would not

have traveled any distance without a companion to escort them, usually a male companion of

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relation to them. Viola as Cessario, participates in many unwomanly activities. She is in male

attendance alone, is allowed to speak her mind freely with no fear of apprehension or

punishment, and at one point in the play she is challenged to a dual:

“I will return again into the house and desire

Some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter.”

(Shakespeare 127)

Though Viola is not a man, and most definitely not a fighter, she still participates in the dual,

which is swiftly broken up my Antonio.

Viola, unlike the Wife of Bath, goes against her sex and society for survival purposes

only. She seems almost embarrassed to be seen in men’s clothing once the secret has come out

and she is known to be a woman. She wishes not to remain a male if she does not have to and in

the end of the play it is hinted to that Viola will return to her womanly ways:

“If nothing lets to make us happy both

But this my masculine usurped attire,

Do not embrace me till each circumstance

OF place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump

That I am Viola; which to confirm,

I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,

Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help

I was preserved to serve this noble count.

All the occurrence of my fortune since

Hath been between this lady and this lord.”

(Shakespeare 179)

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What has Viola offered to the modern woman? Viola has offered women inspiration that

the beauty of the soul is brighter than the beauty of the skin. That one day someone will see past

the skin and look straight into your soul. Her story allows us to see that courage and strength can

and will allow you to come out of any storm with dignity. Viola teaches us that sometimes hard

decisions have to be made in order to survive. Finally, Viola teaches us that true love really does

conquer all.

The last female I am going to discuss is one, who unlike the other two is real. This is a

woman who really existed and who really committed these grievances against her sex. Margery

Kemp dictated a book called The Book of Margery Kempe, in which she told of her struggles,

her journeys, her visions of God. In this book she told of her first vision from God, the vision

that would begin her long journey into the defiance’s against her sex.

“He said to her these words: “Daughter, why have you forsaken

me, and I never forsook you?”. And as soon as he had said these

words, she saw truly how the air opened as bright as any

lightening, and he ascended up into the air, not hastily and quickly,

but beautifully and gradually. So that she could clearly behold him

in the air until it closed up again.” (Margery Kempe)

This excerpt is the beginning of the long journey for Margery Kempe. Kempe chose to maintain

the life of a wife while still maintaining her love for God. She would falter at her quest, for this is

human nature. This was before she truly understood what was destined for her. After coming to

her senses and regaining control of her household, Kempe began to return to her old ways. She

was not a poor woman and was used to luxurious clothing and had a prideful manner, which one

knows is considered a deadly sin. To truly become one with God Kempe would have to learn a

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lesson about her pride.

“And when this creature was thus graciously come again to her mind, she thought she was bound

to God and that she would be his servant. Nevertheless, she would not leave her pride not her

popous array that she had used before time, neither for her husband nor for none others man’s

counsel.”(Margery Kempe)

The lesson would follow with the starting and failing of multiple businesses in an attempt

to maintain the lifestyle that she was used to. To buy the clothing she deemed appropriate for a

woman of her station, yet as a consequence to her need to have rich things her attempts and

opening and maintaining a business would fail.

“The this creature thought how God had punisher her beforetime

and she could not beware, and now eftsoons by losing of

her goods, and then she left and brewed no more. And then she asked

her husband mercy for she would not follow his

counsel aforetime, and she said that her pride was

cause of all her punishing and she would amend that

she had trespassed with good will.”(Margery Kempe)

Margery Kempe would go on to have more visions, and eventually find her way past her

pride and become the wife, mother, and Christian she was supposed to be, but underneath all of

these womanly norms she would hold in her heart the truth, that she was married to God and by

continuing to have a sexual relationship with her husband she was committing a grievance to her

true husband. This is a defiance against her sex and society because in this era a woman was to

be true and steadfast to her husband, a woman who wanted to live with the lord and be the wife

of the Lord joined a convent, freeing their husbands to remarry, and for the wife to remain in the

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nunnery for the rest of her mortal life. Margery Kempe defied that norm by maintaining a sexual

and marital relationship with her husband.

She would also continue to defy the norms of a married woman by asking her husband to

give up his marital rights involving a sexual relationship. She would maintain being his wife and

living in his home, but he would be unable to come to her bed; he would be denied his husbandly

rights. He would deny her appeal to him for many years taking what was his right, until one day

coming home, after asking her what she would do if a man came to them and told her that he

would cut off her husband’s head if she didn’t sleep with him what would she do. Margery would

answer that she would let him die before sleeping with him; with this response he granted her

desire.

“Her husband set him down under the ross, cleping his wife unto him and saying

these words unto her, “Margery, grant me my desire, and I shall grand you your

desire, My first desire is that we shall like still together in one bed as we have

done before; the second that ye shall pay my debts ere ye go to Jerusalem: and the

third that ye shall eat and drink with me on the Friday as ye were wont to do.”

”Nay sir,” she said, “to break the Friday I will never grand you while I live.”

“Well,” he said, “then shall I meddle with you again.”( Margery Kempe)

With this choice, and some deliberation with God, Margery would choose to take the deal and

her husband and herself would no longer have a sexual relationship.

Margery would begin her travels with her husband as her companion. She would suffer

being a social pariah and continue to challenge the role of a woman. She would write this book

in an attempt to gain sainthood, always pushing the boundaries of society. Margery Kempe

teaches the modern woman to stay true to your faith and to stand your ground. To never let

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anyone bully you into conforming to what they believe your role in life is, she is a real life

person who truly suffered to stay true to her beliefs, despite all of her crying, and defeated those

who would scorn her.

Woman throughout the ages have been told what to do, who to marry, and how to think.

These women in literature pushed that thought and challenged the roles that they were born into.

These women would represent a new woman one who could have both family and religion, one

who could do a man’s job just as well as a man, and one who pushed the ideals of marriage to the

extreme never giving up on love. These women where created before a time where they could be

truly appreciated and through learning about them in this age and in this time they become

heroines for the everyday women. Their stories act as a guide on what a woman should be today.

They defied the roles of their sex and so society and because of that they are remembered.

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Work Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.

Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Print

Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print

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Tristan and Isolde as a Character basis for the Arthurian Tales

Comparative World Literature

1 December 2010

The Arthurian tales have been a know legend for centuries. They deal with kings and

queens, knights and wizards, love and adventure. However, before these tales were ever in

existence there was a story about a knight and his lieges’ lady that fell in love due to a magic

potion; and because of that love almost destroyed the kingdom of Cornwall. The love story of

Tristan and Isolde predates the Arthurian Tales. Le Morte d’Arthur is said to have been written

between the years of 1469-1470, by Sir Thomas Mallory, according to the bibliographical note.

(Mallory 99) Within the Arthurian tales one will find reference as well as an altered story of

Tristan and Isolde in chapter XXIV of Le Morte d’Arthur. This tale of the characters from

Tristan and Isolde combine their story with the story of King Arthur, even going so far as having

Sir Tristram save King Arthurs life in a further chapter. The Arthurian Tales are similar to the

love story of Tristan and Isolde, this being that the characters of Tristan, Isolde and King Mark

are the basis of the characters from Le Morte d’Arthur’s Sir Lancelot, Guinevere and King

Arthur.

The character of Tristan is known to be the nephew of King Mark, he is a part of King

Marks court, a trusted advisor, and is loved by his king. Tristan is the one who goes to win Isolde

for his is King but because of Isoldes trickery he drinks a love potion that ensures that he will

love Isolde until his dying days. Tristan loves her beyond his love for his king yet tries to banish

his feeling and himself from court to ensure that he does not do wrong against his king. Similar

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is his character to that of Sir Lancelot the trusted knight of King Arthur who falls in love with

Queen Guinevere. Sir Lancelot is one of the most trusted knights to King Arthur, he goes on

many quests and saves King Arthurs life on many occasions only to be banned from his court

due to his feelings for Queen Guinevere. Queen Guinevere requests that Sir Lancelot remain

away from court so they do not commit treason however, like Tristan he cannot stay away from

his lady love and henceforth dooms himself to live his life loving a woman he can never have.

“But the joy that La Beale Isoud made of Sir Tristram there might no tongue tell, for of all men

earthly she loved him most.” (Mallory 831) In Le Morte d’Arthur, when told by his barons that

he should take a wife King Arthur goes to Merlin for advise, Merlin says to marry her but with

that advise gives him a warning “But Merlin warned the king covertly that Guenever was not

wholesome for him to take to wife, for he warned him that Launcelot should love, her, and she

him again.” (Mallory 329) As if fated the character of Lancelot his destined to commit treason to

his king, as is the case with Tristan.

The character of King Mark of Cornwall is told to take a wife, his nephew Tristan

responds that he will go and win whoever his king so wishes to marry. King Mark chooses Isolde

as his bride, due to her beauty. He shows compassion to both his queen and his nephew upon

hearing about their betrayal, after he begins to punish them. When handing down the punishment

an outside force thwarts his plan to avenge his ego, from there Tristan and Isolde runaway

together. King Mark later finds them and shows mercy, with a sad heart the couple returns

Tristan hands over Isolde to her husband and leaves with his own company. Similar is the

scenario about how King Arthur chooses his bride. “My barons will let me have no rest, but

needs I must take a wife, and I will none take but by thy counsel and by thine advise.” Similar to

King Mark, King Arthur must first seek the advice of an outside source relying on what his

Smith 40

advisors have to say before making a decision about his own life. When asked who he wants to

be his wife he chooses for beauty similar to the scene in Tristan and Isolde, where King Mark

tells Tristan to bring him back the lady to which this strand of hair belongs. “I love Guenever the

king’s daughter. Leodegrance of the land of Cameliard, the which holdeth in his house the Table

Round that ye told he had of my father Uther. And this damsel is the most valiant and fairest lady

that I know living, or yet that ever I could find.” (Mallory 329) King Mark chooses Isolde strictly

on what he could gain by way of land as well as people opinion, same is it with the character of

King Arthur. In the story of Tristan and Isolde, King Mark is forgiving taking back his wife and

allowing his nephew to leave and prosper outside of his kingdom offering him still a place in

court. King Arthur takes back his wife banishes Sir Lancelot, yet brings him home upon his

command, knowing that forever Guinevere will love Sir Lancelot above all.

The character of Isolde is a damsel in distress, she is uprooted from her home, forced to

marry a man not of her choosing and loves a man that is not her husband. She makes sacrifices

however for her husband’s kingdom choosing to remain at his side to promote peace and a united

front. Forever loving a man she can never have. She leaves the kingdom of Cornwall for a brief

time and lives with Tristan never truly committing adultery. She loves Tristan until his dying day

leaving her king long enough to be at his death bed and making it too late to say goodbye. Queen

Guinevere is based off of the character of Isolde because she is in the same circumstance as

Isoldes character. She is married to a great king, who is so good that he offers her back her home

upon arriving back from living with Sir Lancelot. She is forever in love with a man that is not her

husband but remains at her husband’s side to keep the kingdom together. Although there are

many changes to the character of Guinevere the love triangle remains intact. Guinevere is more

selfish in some ways than Isolde, Isolde loves Tristan because of a love potion where Guinevere

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loves Sir Lancelot of her own free will. Upon her death similar to that of the death of Tristan,

Guinevere’s death is of the same circumstance, she awaits her love Sir Lancelot only for him to

be to late, and knowing that he did not make it to see is lady love one last time. He does however

bring her back to be buried with her husband whereas Tristan is brought back and is later

reunited with his lady love in death. Both the characters of Guinevere and Isolde both love there

other men until their deaths.

Though the stories are drastically different the characters of Tristan, Isolde and King

Mark are still the inspiration that gave way to the legendary characters of Sir Lancelot,

Guinevere and King Arthur. The personalities as well as the circumstances remain the same as

well as the love triangle between the king his lady love and his trusted friend. The Arthurian tales

have been renowned for centuries yet the inspiration for these stories never would have occurred

if not for the love story of Tristans and Isolde. The character of Sir Lancelot would not come to

be without the character of Tristan and his love for his king and his woman. The character of

King Arthur may not have been a forgiving, and great king if not for the inspiration of a king

before his time. And Guinever may not have been the love of Sir Lancelots life if not for the

character of Isolde first being in love with Tristan. Mallory gained his characters from a previous

novel “ The Romance of Tristan and Isolde”.

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Work Cited

Ma l lo ry , T . ( 1484 ) . L e mor t e d 'a r thur .

B i ede r , J . ( 2004 ) . T he rom ance o f T t r i s tan and I s o lde .

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How to Teach Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: A Literary Review

British Literature 2

10 May 2013

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a novel widely taught in the United States education

system. Most commonly taught in the twelfth grade, which is designated British Literature;

students are introduced to this novel in a multitude of ways. Each educator taking a different

approach to how to teach this novel, while having an end goal in sight for what they want the

students to take from their lesson. When preparing to teach this novel an educator must do some

research into what the critics have said about teaching the material. Having chosen to do

Frankenstein I was to take this exact approach. By using a book called Frankenstein: A Norton

Critical Edition, which is a collection of reviews written by multiple people that gives the

educator ways of approaching the novel, I found that critics have found that approaching

Frankenstein by using the lens of text accuracy, supplemental material, realism, theory, real-life

scenarios, and finally what the impact of the novel would be the best approach when teaching.

First, critics have found that a selection of the appropriate text is very important. In an

article by Anne K. Mellor called “Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach” there are three texts

to choice from. The first of these is the original manuscript which Mellor says, “is so inaccurate

and so prejudice in favor of Percy Shelley that students must be warned against its misleading

combinations of truths, half-truths, and unwarranted speculations” (205). In this manuscript there

is a biased that unless the educator allows the students to know about they may be misled and not

receive the proper education on this text. The first edition which was publish in 1818, is said to

“have greater internal philosophical coherence, are closest to the authors’ original conceptions,

and are more convincingly related to their historical contexts” (205). If the educator wants the

Smith 44

students to get an understanding of the author’s original intent the best edition would be this text.

Finally there is the second edition which was published in 1831, which according to Mellor,

Mary Shelley’s philosophical views changed radically, primarily as a result of the

pessimism generated by the deaths of Clara, William, and Percy Shelley; by the

betrayals of Byron and Jane Williams; and by severely straitened economic

circumstances. These events convinced Marry Shelley that human events are

decided not by personal choice or free will but by and indifferent destiny or fate.

(209)

Each edition offers the students different ideas and theories. If one was to combine the three texts

one could make a very interesting lesson on theory and how it evolves and changes as time

changes the individual.

The second approach is to use supplemental material as a means of connecting the text to

other works. For example Milton’s Paradise Lost is referenced many times throughout the novel.

By using this supplemental material students will have a better understanding of what is

happening in the text and will be able to make a connection between the text and the poem. This

connection allows the students to have a more educated stance while reading the novel and will

allow the educator to have discussions in class. This approach to teaching the novel is very

important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in order to understand the development of the Monster

one has to know what the he is gaining his novel from. A second reason that this approach is

important is because without this knowledge the novel becomes more confusing and not a

coherent as it is by knowing this companion piece.

Smith 45

A third approach to teaching Frankenstein is by using a realism approach. Realism is a

manner of treating a subject of matter that represents everyday life, this usually pertains to the

lower or middle class but it is not limited to these socioeconomic levels. Teaching Frankenstein

allows educators to introduce Realism and to see how is evolved. The text of Frankenstein is a

romantic era text; however the fact that Victor is not killed by some supernatural force allows the

idea of Realism to emerge. In an article by George Levine titled “Frankenstein and the Tradition

of Realism” he states that, “He is destroyed not by some metaphysical agency, but by his own

nature and the consequences of living in or rejecting human community” (311). This approach is

important because it begins to introduce this idea that Victor is his own enemy and because of

this reason Frankenstein has a Realism tradition. By using this approach the educator opens a

gateway to a transition into Realism that would otherwise not be a smooth transition.

A fourth approach to teaching this novel is by defining what a monster is. This is a good

approach because it allows students to theorize about who the monster of the story really is and

discuss what makes a monster. In an article by Peter Brooks, titled “What is a Monster?

According to Frankenstein.” in this article Brooks points out that:

We are always lead back, in Frankenstein, to the peculiarity that this cultural

creation, this epistemophilic product, has become part of nature – that this idea or

concept of the monster, which at first has no referent in the natural world, gains

one. (390)

By using the idea of what makes a monster students could form their own definition to the text

and allow for them to raise the issue of who is the monster Victor or his creation. This is an

Smith 46

approach that pulls in theory and philosophy as well as opening up discussion and debate that

would otherwise not be included within the lesson.

The fifth approach to teaching this text is to make it real. Give this story a truth a link to

the real world. In the article by Lawrence Levine, “Frankenstein, the True Story; or, Roussaue

Judges Jean Jacques” this real life story is introduced. This story is no longer a work of fiction

but something that could happen in real life. In this article it is said that:

The book itself, of course, inspires this fascination with secrets. An undisclosed

secret, the principle of life, motivates all the action, and Frankenstein’s lonely,

obsessive quest spurs a competitive response in many lonely, obsessive readers

who pursue, like him, the mystery of creation. (417)

This approach is important because by connecting this text to the readers the students gain more

of an understanding and learns to identify with both the Monster and Victor. An educator could

use this approach and have students look into court cases like the Casey Anthony story and write

an essay on the comparison to either Victor or the Monster to the defendant within the court case.

This is just another approach when teaching this novel.

The last approach to teaching this novel is to discuss the impact that this novel had on the

culture of the time as well as why it is still a popular text today. In an article by William St.

Clairs, “Frankenstein’s Impact”, in this article William St. Clairs states:

Frankenstein had a political and ethical purpose. In accordance with the

Godwinian theory of progress, Frankenstein would, they hoped, help to change

the perceptions, the knowledge, the understanding, and therefore the behavior, of

those who read or otherwise encountered it. The reading of the book would, they

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hoped, contribute, in its small way, to the general intellectual and moral

improvement of society in its slow, much interrupted, progress towards

perfection. (248)

This approach is one that can be used in the classroom to highlight what Mary Shelley was

saying was wrong with society and allow students to decide what course of action would

improve society. Frankenstein’s impact on society is still in effect everyone who reads this novel

is left with these sense that we have failed society in some way and makes the reader want to

better that world. This is something that can go in many different directions starting with politics

and ending with moral standards. Students need to have this approached last because it is

something that is a concluding thought and therefore needs to be approached at the end of the

lesson.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a timeless novel. It is full of mystery and intrigue; it

makes the reader yearn for more. But this text also brings up many issues that need to be

addressed. In order to teach this novel an educator must take many different approaches in order

to for the students to gain an understanding of the text. An educator need to consider what they

want their students to know and they need to do research into what the critics are saying about

this text. They need to choose supplemental material that is both beneficial and important. The

critics are saying that Frankenstein needs to be approached in many ways, through text,

importance, and impact. In order for the students to begin to change the world they first have to

see what is wrong with society.

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Work Cited

Brooks, Peter. “What Is a Monster? According to Frankenstein”. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul

Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012. 368-390. Print.

Levine, George. “Frankenstein and the Tradition of Realism”. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul

Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012. 311-16. Print.

Levine, Lawerence. “Frankenstein, the True Story; or, Roussau Judges Jean- Jacques”.

Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012. 416-34. Print

Mellor, Anne K. “Choosing a Text of Frankenstein to Teach”. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul

Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012. 204-11. Print

Milton, John. “Paradise Lost”. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012.

290-95. Print

Shelley, Mary. “Frankenstein”. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.

St. Clairs, William. “Frankenstein’s Impact”. Frankenstein. 2nd ed. Ed. J.Paul Hunter. New York:

Norton, 2012. 248-62. Print

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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

Genre Studies

12 December 2012

Charlotte Bronte is one of the most famous female authors of British Literature, coming from a

family that urged the imagination and produced not only Charlotte Bronte but also her sisters

Anne, and Emily. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, is one of the most famous works of autobiographical

fiction in the English Language. This fictional autobiography is representation of the life of

Charlotte Bronte, the character of Jane Eyre is living the events that happened to not only

Charlotte but her sisters and her unrequited love. Hardships endured by Jane are also hardships

that plagued the famous Charlotte Bronte. In this paper I am going to discuss how the events that

happened in Charlotte’s life shaped the story of Jane Eyre.

Charlotte Bronte was born April 21st, 1816. Her parents were Maria Branwell and Patrick

Bronte. From the start the family was influenced by the love of their parents, for that time they

did something uncommon, they married for love. In Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography on Charlotte

Bronte she states that Patrick Bronte, “wooed and married Maria Branwell.”(33). At an early age

they grew to believe in love, for that was what their parents married for, the occurrence of love is

prominent in Jane Eyre. Another theme in Jane Eyre is the loss of a mother both the characters

of Jane and of Jane’s charge are motherless. Maria Branwell serves as an inspiration to Charlotte

throughout her work. Her appearance appears in not only Charlottes books, but also in her sisters

work: “Miss Branwell was extremely small in person; not pretty, but very elegant, and always

dressed with a quiet simplicity of taste, which accorded well with her general character, and of

which some of the details call to mind the style of dress preferred by her daughter for her favorite

heroines. (Gaskell 35). Maria was also an orphan, having no parents but an Uncle that took care

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of her. In Jane Eyre, Jane has no parents but an Aunt by marriage and an uncle on her father’s

side, this character we don’t hear about until much later in the book, and serves only as an

income for Jane once he has passed away.

This is because shortly after the age of six Maria Branwell passed away leaving behind her

husband Patrick, her daughters Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. She left behind a

son also, Branwell Bronte. The children were kept mostly at home being tutored by their Aunt

Miss. Branwell. A life without their mother left the children to be raised with no motherly

guidance, the aunt could only fill so much room in their hearts and in Gaskell’s book she says

“The children could never freely love her” (36).

In July of 1824, Mr. Bronte escorted his two oldest children, Maria and Elizabeth

Cowans Bridge School. This is the school where the inspiration for Lowood’s School for Girls

came about. So similar was Lowood the Cowans Bridge School that Charlotte said to Gaskett:

“Miss Bronte more than once said to me, that she should not have written what she did of

Lowood in ‘Jane Eyre’, if she had thought the place would have been so immediately identified

with Cowan’s Bridge, although there was not a word in her account of the institution but what

was true at the time when she knew it,” (51).

In one descript of the food, one will find almost identical text. Jane says:

“On two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth

and odor far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the

repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall

girls of the grist class, rose the whispered words:- ‘Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!’(43)

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Gaskell’s book describes the food almost similarly but without the added length of text,

“To some children oatmeal porridge is distasteful, and consequently unwholesome, even when

properly made; at Cowans Bridge School it was too often sent up, not merely burnt, but with

offensive fragments of other substances discoverable in it,(54).

Charlotte Bronte lived in fear of this school and showed the treatment of the children in a

very honest manner when writing Jane Eyre. Most of the events that happened to the character

Helen Burns, in reality happened to Charlotte’s sister Maria. In Gaskell’s biography she writes

about the treatment of Maria Bronte:

“For her ill health was increasing; the old cough, the remains of the hooping-cough,

lingered about her; she was far superior in mind to any of her play-fellows and companions, and

was lonely amongst them from that very cause; and yet her faults were so annoying that she was

in constant disgrace with her teachers, and an object of merciless dislike to one of them, who is

depicted as ‘Miss Scatherd’ in ‘Jane Eyre,’ and whose real name I will be merciful enough not to

disclose. I hardly need to say, that Helen Burns is as exact a transcript of Maria Bronte as

Charlotte’s wonderful power of reproducing character could give. Her heart, to the latest day on

which we met, still beat with unavailing indignation at the worrying and the cruelty to which her

gentle, patient, dying sister had been subjected by this woman. Not a word of that part of ‘Jane

Eyre’ but is a literal repetition of scenes between the pupil and the teacher.”(56)

In Jane Eyre the treatment that Maria Bronte suffered is magnified in detail when talking

about Helen Burns. In Jane Eyre, Jane witnesses this abuse upon arriving to Lowood:

“When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not

catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and , going into the small inner room

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where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied

together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scarcherd with a respectful

curtesty; the she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly

and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to

Burn’s eye; and, while I passed from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle

with a sentiment of unavailing and impotents anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its

ordinary expression.”(51)

This was the treatment to which Maria Bronte suffered at the hand of her teacher, the

same suffering of Helen Burns and the same anger that rises in Jane would also rise up in

Charlotte. Charlotte wanted readers to know what was done to her sister by allowing the

character of Helen to suffer so, allowed for the reader to connect with not only Helen’s pain but

also with the pain her sister suffered.

During the time the girls were in school a fever broke out in the spring of 1825, this

incident is spoken of in Jane Eyre as the last straw in the death of Helen Burns. Like Helen,

Maria didn’t last past the spring catching a fever like so many others, yet unlike the others Maria

would go home and later die of consumption. I am not sure that like Helen, Maria got to give a

final speech but Helens speech was that well beyond the years of a ten year old:

“I am very happy, Jane, and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not

grieve, there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is

removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no on to regret me

much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I

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shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the

world: I should have been continually at fault.”(77)

With the death of their sister, Maria, the rest of the children returned to school.

They would quickly be coming home because the second oldest, Elizabeth would soon become

ill and die shortly after Maria. With both of the oldest sisters gone Charlotte would take up the

reins as the eldest child, quickly growing up in order to fill both the roles of the eldest child but

also the role of mother and caregiver. During the time the children were home, they took to

creating a magical world. Branwell and Charlotte would focus their attention on their world.

Angria, where they would make up characters and give them wild adventures. It was during this

time that Charlotte began creating the dashing Mr. Rochester, though at that time he was not

named so.

Life would quickly change for Charlotte, not long after being home her father sent

her away to another school to begin her professional training. Unlike the school before this one

was well taken care of and so were the students. However, Charlotte begins school on a bad note,

for due to her old style clothing and shy demeanor she was not liked immediately choosing to

indulge in her studies instead of making friends. Emily Gaskell describes Charlotte in her

biography:

“This is perhaps a fitting time to give some personal description of Miss Bronte. In 1831,

she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure—“stunted”

was the word she applied to herself, -- but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the

slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be

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applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a

description, as they appeared to me in her later life.” (74)

Once her time at Roe Head was complete, she became a teacher at the school. Charlotte would

take this experience and incorporate it into Jane’s life. For once Jane was finished at school she

would then become a teacher just like her creator. And like her creator she would quickly tire of

that profession and wish to find a different job. That job for Jane would be the beginning of her

life, that job for Charlotte would be a nuisance.

Jane leaves her school to begin the job as governess for Mr. Rochester and his charge.

While Charlotte would bounce through a couple of places before deciding that she wanted to

own her own school. This need to own her own school would lead her to Brussels and to the love

story that would come from that trip. While in Brussels, Charlotte was attending a school to

teach her and Emily more foreign languages it is here that Charlotte begins to fall for her married

instructor Mr. Heges. She would fall deeply in love with this married man but unlike the end of

Jane Eyre Charlottes love life would not end so nicely. Her love would become that of a simple

infatuation on Charlotte’s behalf but would not be returned. Charlotte gave Jane, the ending she

wished would have happened to her, allowing for Mr. Rochester’s wife to pass on allowing her

to become his wife.

Charlotte also added the character of St. John due to a proposal that was offered to her by

the man that would later become her husband Mr. Nicholas Bell. Who proposed to her while she

was still fawning over her Mr. Hege. She introduced the character of St. John as a good match

for Jane Eyre yet, like Charlotte she could not get over her past love life to allow any room in her

heart for another.

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Charlotte would make one final connection between herself and Jane. In the end of Jane’s

adventure she goes back to find Mr. Rochester blind and burned. After marrying him she learns

that he is gaining sight in one of his damaged eyes and they make haste to London to speak to a

surgeon about the options he has. After having surgery on his eye he gains sight back in one eye.

This is an ending that came about due to Charlotte’s father’s eyesight being lost. During the time

that she wrote Jane Eyre, Charlotte was standing vigil at her fathers beside after he underwent

surgery to remove cataracts. In a letter written by Charlotte to one of her sister’s she say:

“The affair lasted precisely a quarter of an hour; it was not the simple operation of couching, Mr.

C. Described, but the more complicated one of extracting the cataract. Mr. Wilson entirely

disapproves of couching. Papa displayed extraordinary patience and firmness; the surgeon

seemed surprised. I was in the room all the time, as it was his wish that I should be there; of

course, I neither spoke nor moved till the thing was done, and then I felt that the less I said,

either to papa or the surgeons, the better.”(230)

When asked about the comparison between herself and Jane Charlotte had only to say on

the subject, “She once told her sisters that they were wrong- even morally wrong- in making

their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a

heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was,

“I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as

myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.” Hence “Jane Eyre,” said she in telling the

anecdote: “but she is not myself, any further than that.”(235)

This is the last I will say on the subject of Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bronte. In my opinion they

are one in the same, Charlotte created her to live vicariously through and became one of the most

Smith 56

remembered of the Bronte’s sisters due to her novel. They hold more similarities than she would

ever want to admit.

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Work Cited

Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Bronte. New York. Penguin Putnam Inc, 1997. Print

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Mineola, Dover Publications Inc, 2002. Print

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Beauty and the Beast

Literature and Media

20 October 2013

Beauty, a trait many compare to outward appearance, but in the story by Mme Marie Le

Prince de Beaumont beauty is what is in the inside and that should be what is judged and deemed

worthy of love. Beauty and the Beast is one of the most famous fairy tales in the world. Known

for the underlying theme of looking past the surface flaws and seeing the beauty underneath, it

has become one of the most cherished children’s stories in today’s culture. The character of

Beauty always sees through the monstrous mask of the Beast, and falls in love with him,

changing him into a prince. Adaptations of this story has spanned into plays, movies, TV shows,

and novels. Mme Marie Le Prince de Beaumont never fully describes her Beast but in many

other adaptations the viewer or reader is given a description of the Beast. Many adaptations focus

on the character of Beauty, who changes and evolves but always falls for the Beast in any form

he takes. The Beasts character is always changing from a monster, to an animal, to a woman with

a curse, the character of the Beast has been portrayed in multiple ways. Using the source text I

will be focusing on the adaptations of the Beast within three adaptations, Beauty and the Beast

by Disney, Shrek, and a novel by Alex Flinn.

In Beaumont’s story a merchant has six children, the youngest of them is Beauty, upon the loss

of her father’s riches Beauty takes over the role of caregiver. When her father leaves to journey

to the sea to pick up a shipment he asks each of his three daughters what they would like him to

bring them back. The two oldest sisters say jewels and jewels, Beauty however, says

“ Since you are so kind as to think of me, be so kind as to bring me a rose, for as none grown

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hereabouts, they are a kind of rarity”(Beaumont 4). The merchant upon becoming lost takes

shelter in a palace. He eats the food, and sleeps in a palace bedroom, and upon waking in the

morning he embarks on his way home he sees a rose garden. He picks one for Beauty and as

soon as he picks one the Beast appears giving us our first appearance of the Beast’s character,

“My name is not My Lord, but Beast: I don’t love compliments, not I; I like people should speak

as they think: and so do not imagine I am to be moved by any of your flattering speeches; but

you say you have got daughters; I will forgive you, on condition that one of them come

willingly, and suffer for you. Let me have no words, but go about your business, and swear that

if your daughter refuses to die in you stead you will return within three months,” (Beaumont 6).

The character of Beauty chooses to take her father’s place and is welcomed into the castle. Upon

her first sight of the beast is described as “Beauty was sadly terrified at his horrid

form”(Beaumont 8). The source text focuses more on his personality than on his appearance.

This is truly the only adaptation that I have researched that the Beasts personality is the main

focal point.

In Walt Disney’s animated movie of Beauty and the Beast, it begins by first telling how

the prince became the Beast, focusing on his cruelty to an old woman who offers him a red rose

for shelter from the cold. Upon refusing her twice, the old woman sheds her appearance and

becomes a beautiful woman who lays upon the prince a curse. The prince will take on the

appearance of a beast until his twenty first year when if he hasn’t found someone to love him for

who he is he will remain a beast. The Walt Disney adaptation creates a beast that is more animal

than man. The Beast can talk and walk on two legs however; his appearance is that of a mix

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between a bear and a lion. The Beast has a temper that is not mentioned in the source text, for

example in the Disney version the Beast invites Belle for dinner upon her refusal he threatens to

beat down the door. Walt Disney’s version also portrays the Beast as animalistic in his

mannerisms, taking the dinner scene and showing the Beast eating with his claws, upon seeing

the look in Belle’s eyes he picks up the eating utensils and in a sense relearns how to be human.

James Beradinelli states in a review that “The ballroom sequence, which mixes

computer- generated backgrounds with hand-drawn characters, is the best scene in the movie, but

it is nearly equaled by a handful of others. And, while the camera in most animated films

remains largely static, here it's frequently on the move, soaring and zooming as it circles

characters and imitates tracking shots. Visually, Beauty and the Beast is so carefully-constructed

that repeated viewings reveal new details, like the wayward strands of hair that fall across Belle's

forehead.”(Beradinelli). The ballroom scene is the most humanistic that the Beast appears in the

movies. Until this scene he still maintains a very animalistic aura. When he appears in this scene

he is dressed like a man. He walks on two legs and dances with Belle, he becomes the prince he

thought he has lost.

In Beastly, Alex Flinn takes a story usually told from Beauty’s perspective and places the

story in the Beast’s. The story starts out in modern day New York City, with a kid named Kyle.

Kyle is the most popular guy in his high school with the cruelest personality. He asks the “weird”

girl to go to the dance with him and she agrees, asking her to the dance is going to be a joke. She

asks for him to bring her a single white rose. He stands the character Kendra up, not knowing

that she is a witch. She gives him one year as he truly is, a beast. “You are ugly now, on the

inside, where it matters most… you are beastly” (Flinn). Flinn’s Beast is so disgusted with

himself that he moves into a house in the outskirts of New York where his father hires him a

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blind tutor to educate him so no one will see what has happened to him. The character Kyle

changes his name to Adrian in order to avoid anyone knowing his true identity. Kendra gives

him a year to find someone to love him for him, instead of the cruel rich boy he once was.

Kyle learns of a girl named Linda who saw past his cruel exterior when he was a regular

guy. He realizes that if any girl could love him for his personality, then Linda could. Similar to

the source text the father of the beauty trades his daughters’ life for his own. Linda’s father gives

her to Kyle, who tries over and over to make her like him. He learns that gifts and riches won’t

make her care. Instead Kyle learns to enjoy her hobbies, and introduces her to his gardening.

Flinn’s beast is described very similar to that of the Disney version, very animalistic however

without the anger issues. However, in the Flinn version the beast is given a chance to not only

return to his human form but also asks that the people that have lived the year with him are

allowed to have the one thing they want the most. Beastly was number one on the New York

Times best seller list in April 24, 2011.

The last adaptation is Shrek, an animated movie created in 2001, that takes place in a

fairytale land where donkeys talk and princesses are really stuck in towers. Unlike the other

adaptations the character of the Beast is not the scary ogre you meet at the beginning, the Beast

is the princess stuck up in a tower. Fiona is a young princess who was cursed to be a beautiful

girl by day but a ogre by night. The only way to end her curse is if she experiences true loves

first kiss and with it take true loves form. Shrek is on an adventure to get his land back but in

order to do this he must save Princess Fiona, little does he know of her curse or that like the

other adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, he will fall in love with Fiona.

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Fiona’s character wants nothing more than to become a human permanently, she despises

herself as an ogre not realizing that in herself hatred of the beast she becomes a pampered

princess who expects to receive her way at any cost. Shrek delivers her to a prince who is to

marry her and with this marriage Fiona will become the human she so longs to be. But in her

insistence to become human she fails to realize that her journey with Shrek has grown from

hatred to friendship, and finally to love. In the end though Shrek rescues the princess and gives

her true loves first kiss, yet unlike the other endings Fiona takes on the form of her ogre persona.

The tale of Shrek is one of the first movies that give you the beast as a human with a part time

curse, as well as making the beast a female. This movie really hits home on the theme that beauty

is in the eye of the beholder as well as what lies under the surface.

The adaptations I chose for this give you a wide range of Beast’s, the animalistic, the

human, the temperamental, as well as the female. Throughout the adaptations you are given a

little bit more of an idea of what the original Beast was intended to be, yet still allowed a free

rein as to view the Beast in your own imagination. In the source text you are only told that he is

ugly, in the Disney movie you are given a more animalistic, temperamental Beast, in Beastly you

are given the Beast’s point of view and allowed to see what may have been on the Beasts mind

as he transforms into someone worthy of love, and finally in Shrek you are given a Beast that is

not only female but truly self-sufficient.

Adaptations change over time at first it would have only been from novel to novel, now

however, you can adapt a story in so many different ways, TV shows, movies, cartoons, poetry,

theater, and art. The way stories are adapted are ever changing, moving in different directions

that will follow the new themes and styles of film. The Beast’s character is an enigma always

having a different personality but always heading in the same direction. He/she needs to be loved

Smith 63

in order to become who they truly are. In the Disney version it is becoming a Prince and living

his life with Belle and his sing along friends. In Beastly it is moving on with a his life out from

under the shadow of his father’s ambitions, learning that for all of his pretty good looks the

monster was underneath, and in Shrek realizing that the figure you hate so much is also the one

that offers you a life of love and stability. All of the Beasts adaptations always have to learn the

same lesson, in order to be loved you have to be judged on your appearance inside not out.

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Work Cited

Beaumont, Marie Le Prince de. Beauty and the Beast. London, England: George Routledge and

Sons. 1874. Print

Flinn, Alex. Beastly. New York, New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2007. Print

Beauty and the Beast. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 1991.

VHS.

Shrek. Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson. DreamWorks Pictures, 2001. VHS.

Amy. "Book Review: Beastly by Alex Flinn." Reading Teen. 2 Feb. 2011. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.readingteen.net>.

"Best Sellers." NY Times Advertisement. Best Seller, 24 Apr. 2011. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.nytimes.com>.

Rushdie, Salman. "The Guardian." Latest News, Sport and Comment from the Guardian | The

Guardian. The Guardian, 24 Feb. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.guardian.co.uk>.

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Teaching Morality Through The Great Gatsby

American Literature 2

30 April 2013

Through the novel The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, as well as other

supplemental material including Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and a selection of short

stories and poetry, students will learn about morality. The class lessons will be structured around

Lawrence Kohlberg’s Levels of Morality. This model of morality is broken into three levels:

Preconventional, Conventional, and Postconventional. Each of these three levels is further

broken down into two stages, amounting to six stages of morality. With the use of the novels and

other supplemental material, students will learn to associate characters from the stories to the

levels of morality. Students will also be able to discuss these levels and make their own

arguments as to what they believe is moral and what they believe to be immoral. Students will be

able to give a definition of morality and will be able to defend their own definition with textual

support. This theme of morality is important for the students to learn and understand because this

issue of what is right and what is wrong is a human dilemma that occurs every day. Students

should make their own decisions based on what they believe is moral because, for better or

worse, these decisions will appear in life and choices will have to be made.

The first level of moral development is Preconventional Morality. At this level

individuals will determine what is right and wrong based on punishment and reward. Stage one is

when an individual will determine what is moral by doing the opposite of what will be punished.

W. C. Crain’s article Theories of Development offers this explanation, “The child assumes that

powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly

obey”(3). For example, a child is offered the choice between eating his vegetables or being

Smith 66

grounded for a week, the child will pick eating the vegetables in order to avoid the punishment.

This stage of morality is best highlighted by the character of Lenni from Of Mice and Men.

Lenni is at this stage of moral development due to his childlike mentality and because of this his

character is unable to evolve to the next level of moral development. By using the character of

Lenni students will be asked to show specific examples from the text, such as:

But Lenni made an elaborate pantomime of innocence. “What mouse,

George? I ain’t got a mouse.”

George held out his hand. “Come on. Give it to me. You ain’t puttin

nothing over.”

Lenni hesitated, backed away, looked wildly at the brush line as though

contemplating running for his freedom. George said coldly, “You gonna give me

that mouse or do I have to sock you?”

“Give you what, George?”

“You know God damn well what. I want that mouse.”

Lenni reluctantly reached into his pocket. His voice broke a little. “I don’t

know why I can’t keep it. It ain’t nobody’s mouse. I didn’t steal it. I found it lyin’

right beside the road.”

George’s hand remained outstretched imperiously. Slowly, like a terrier

who doesn’t want to bring a ball to its master, Lenni approached, drew back,

approached again. George snapped his fingers sharply, and at the sound Lenni laid

the mouse in his hand.

“I wasn’t doin’ nothing bad with it, George. Jus’ strokin’ it. (Steinbeck 8-

9)

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In order for students to validate and argue this stage, they would be required to keep a character

journal where they would be asked at what stage they believe the character to be and why and

then give textual evidence to defend their argument. This character journal is important for the

students to complete because it allows them to have a visual aid and allows the teacher a means

to assess and track the progress of the students. The first stage is important because it is the very

first demonstration of the decision making process.

The second stage of moral development is deciding what is moral based on individualism

and exchange. “This is a notion of fair exchange or fair deals” (Crain 4). This stage is a classic

example of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” mentality, this is because it is the

philosophy of returning favors. At this stage an individual will decide whether something is right

or wrong based solely on what will gain them the best reward. Using this stage students will be

asked to choose a character they believed best highlighted this stage of morality. The character of

Myrtle Wilson from The Great Gatsby would be the most likely choice. Myrtle is having an

affair with Tom Buchanan, a very wealthy and married man. Myrtle is the logical choice for this

stage due to her need for the material goods Tom provides for her. For example:

“My dear,” she cried, “I’m going to give you this dress as soon as I’m through

with it. I’ve got to get another one tomorrow. I’m going to make a list of all the

things I’ve got to get. A massage and wave, and a collar for the dog, and one of

those cute little ash-trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk

bow for mother’s grave, that’ll last all summer. I got to write down a list so I

won’t forget all these things I got to do.”(Fitzgerald 36)

In the case of Myrtle the “fair exchange” is her company for the use of Tom’s money. After

covering both of these stages an assignment that had multiple situational scenarios would be

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passed out for the students to complete. There is a very small difference between the two stages,

that being that punishment is not the deciding factor but a small avoidance, that allows for a

small challenge in deciding whether they scenario is stage one or stage two. The use of this

assignment would be used as an assessment tool in order for the teacher to gain insight on what

the students have comprehended thus far and what may need to be covered some more. Stage

two of moral development is important because it allows students to see that making decisions

for selfish reasons is a normal step in the process of growing up, one must go through that stage

in order to progress to the next stage of moral development.

The second level of moral development is Conventional Morality; at this level and

individual will base their decisions of right or wrong based on the opinion of others. They seek

the approval of others in order to formulate a decision. Stage three is characterized as, “people

who live up to the expectations of the family and community and behave in “good” ways. Good

behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and

concern for others” (Crain 4). For example, in The Great Gatsby the character of Daisy

Buchanan has this need to be liked. This need is what influences her decision making:

“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.

“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted

black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persisant wail all night along the north

shore.”

“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. To-morrow!”(Fitzgerald 9)

Daisy also chooses to break her word to Gatsby. This is done by staying with her husband Tom

instead of running off with Gatsby. Students would use their character journals to show evidence

of their decision from the text. They would also be assigned to choose another character for the

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story and give evidence as to why that character would be at this stage. This is important because

in a school environment students face this need for acceptance and will make their decisions

based on what will gain them the acceptance of their peers, whether for good or for bad.

The fourth stage of moral development is contrasted to the third stage by, “the respondent

becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole. Now the emphasis is on obeying laws,

respecting authority, and performing one’s duties so that the social order is maintained” (Crain

5). The character of Daisy can bridge into this stage as well as stay firmly rooted within stage

three. She characterizes stage three due to her need to gain acceptance from those who are the

closest to her, but she is also stage four because she also bases her decisions on what is best for

society. Daisy illustrates what is expected of a woman at this time. She is a wife and mother and

bases her decision to stay with Tom because that is what her society expects her to do. She

conforms to the masses. A second character that characterizes this stage is that of Nick Carroway

from The Great Gatsby, who is the narrator of the story. Nick illustrates stage four due to his

need to conform to whatever society needs him to be, for example, Nick acts as the confidant to

many of the characters. In the beginning of the story Nick says:

In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up

many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran

bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when

it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly

accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret grief’s of wild,

unknown men.(Fitzgerald 1)

Nick’s character acts as the social mediator; he is who he needs to be in any given situation. He

conforms to whatever society he finds himself in. By using this stage students would be asked

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how reliable the narrator is due to the stage he is at, and whether they believe that by the end of

the story Nick has grown. This stage is important because many individuals tend to coast at this

stage due to the fear of society collapsing and the resulting chaos that would follow.

The third level of moral development is Postconventional. This level is characterized as

an individual that has an abstract meaning of justice, meaning that if the situation is called for an

individual will take justice into their own hands, and believes that the rights of others can

override obedience to laws and rules. W.C. Crain describes this stage as the “respondents

basically believe that a good society is best conceived as a social contract into which people

freely enter to work toward the benefit of all. They recognize that different social groups within

society will have different values, but they believe that all rational people would agree on two

points” (6). The character that best fits this stage is that of George from Of Mice and Men.

George follows his groups’ norms but in the end he makes a choice to kill his friend to spare him

the consequences of his actions.

And George raised the run and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to

the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand

steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled

down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay

without quivering. (Steinbeck 106)

By choosing to take the law into his own hands George achieves this stage of morality. At this

stage students would be given a fictionalized scenario created by Lawrence Kohlberg, this was

found in the Highn’s Journal and is called Heinz Steals the Drug. The scenario is this:

In Europe, a woman near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug

that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in

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the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the

druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for

the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s

husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could

only get together $1,000 which is half of the cost. He told the druggist that his

wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the

druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.”

So Heinz got desperate and broke in the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife.

Should the husband have done that? (Hine 1-2)

From this story students would write a paper. This paper would be argumentative and would

form around a specific stage of moral development that the students would provide evidence for.

This is an important level because normally this level is never reached, due to the fear of society

falling and chaos ensuing, for this reason students need to know what this level is and answer the

inner question on whether or not they can ascend to this stage.

Stage six of moral development is characterized by an individual’s principal of

consciousness. Meaning that “According to these people, the principals of justice require us to

treat all parties in an impartial manner, respecting the basic dignity of all people as individuals.

The principals of justice are therefore universal; they apply to all” (Crain 7). In The Great Gatsby

Tom Buchanan is the only character that can be categorized into this stage. He deems the whit

race is superior to all others and that the white race should maintain that order. In the novel Tom

tells Nick:

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“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we

don’t look out the white race will be- will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific

stuff, it’s been proven.”

“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her

impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are

the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”

(Fitzgerald 13)

He is characteristic of this stage because he holds himself to a different standard then others and

has no respect for any minorities. When this stage is reached the students would be given another

list of scenarios. These scenarios would be based on real world decisions, using the knowledge

that has been gained throughout the unit students will decide what is right or wrong, explain

what stage they based their decision on, and then connect those decisions back to the texts. At

the end of the unit students would be given T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, from this they will

openly discuss what they believe the author is saying about the moral view of the Western World

and will then present their response to the class. This level is important because it is the last step

of the decision making process.

“Implementing moral education using Kohlberg’s model as a theoretical framework will

help produce an educated citizenry by directly teaching moral reasoning through content-

integrated, dilemma-based discussion, modeling a democratic environment through shared

leadership and facilitating growth through stages of moral development” (Dolph 18). By the end

of this unit students will be able to know and understand the material that was covered in both

novels as well as having a firm understanding of the Theory of Moral Development. They will be

able to give the names of each level and tell what each stage demonstrates. Finally, students

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should be able to define morality and be able to make a decision as to which level or stage they

have attained. This unit is an important one because it gives individuals a firm understanding as

to what are decisions are based upon and allows us to be better prepared to make those decisions.

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Works Cited

Crain, W.C. “Kohlberg’s Moral Stages.” Theories of Development. Prentice Hall, 1985. Web. 15

April. 2013

Dolph, Katie. “Moral Reasoning: A Necessary Standard of Learning in Today’s Classroom.”

Journal of Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives in Education 1.1 (2008): 13-19. Web. 1 April

2013.

Eliot, T.S. “The Wasteland.” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature Volume Two: 1865

To The Present. Eds. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’,

2008. 678-696. Print

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. “The Great Gatsby”. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.

Hines. “Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development”. Highn’s Journal (2011): 1-4. Web. 29 April

2013.

Steinbeck, John. “Of Mice and Men”. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print.

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The Broken VoicesA Collection of Short Stories

By: Sydney M. Smith

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Introduction

I began working on this a year ago in a Professional Writing course with Dr. Jack Hart.

This began with the Invisible Girl story, which came to me during a dream. I was inspired to

write that dream down because I knew that girl when I was in school, in some ways I was that

girl in school. From that story grew this idea of a collection of stories with Janie Doe appearing

throughout the entire collection. I wanted to show this one character that, though feeling invisible

made a tremendous difference in many people’s lives. Janie is a character that no one sees, but

at the same time everyone sees. She is very complex and very unaware of her surroundings and

the individuals that surround her on a daily basis.

Each of these characters are somehow influenced by Janie, that influence is either a major

life-changing moment or it is simply a minor moment that doesn’t take any important notice, but

through their stories the reader will gain a better understanding of who Janie is and what drives

her character.

These stories are also serving as a lesson to the reader. This lesson is that every

individual has a story, a reason that they are and act like they do, and though it is human nature

to judge we as a whole should try to withhold judgment because we don’t know about the half

they keep secret. The opinions and comments of others can do major damage to a soul that is

already struggling with an issue and the rest of the world needs to understand that there is a

whole different situation happening behind closed doors.

Be kind to everyone you meet, they are fighting a battle you know nothing about.

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Stall Confessions

Slut

Whore

Call Maggie for a good time

1-800-GET-LAID

These are just a few of the nasty things written on the bathroom wall about me. Maggie

Smith, the girl who gets more ass than a toilet seat. I’m really not picky about who I sleep with,

they each serve their purpose. For just a little while they make me forget what is waiting for me

at home. When I am with them I may be on my back but I’m in control about who’s on top, and

no one can take that control from me.

However, the choices I have made have left me with a few enemies, mostly girls, some

guys. Like I said I’m not picky, their relationship status doesn’t matter to me, sex is sex and like

their boyfriends I’m not hard to get naked. The girls don’t seem to get that it isn’t personal, I’m

not emotionally invested in their men, and they can have them when I’m done. I just want to

forget for a bit, I want control, and that’s all those guys are to me an outlet to let me express

control.

For now though I’m hiding out in a bathroom stall, Stephanie Lane decided to confront

me about her boyfriend, Sloan Mitchell cheating on her. She slapped me and I beat the shit out of

her. So now I’m in here hiding out and finishing my lunch, it isn’t exactly fine dining but it sure

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as hell beats being in the principal’s office, or getting jumped by her clique of friends. This is

ridiculous! Like it’s my fault he slept around on her, I’m pretty sure I don’t control the head he

was thinking with, but isn’t that how it goes. Doesn’t matter anyway, he didn’t exactly get to

finish. He was to rough; I started to lose control, and of course telling him to get the hell off me

ended with him tossing my room around. Even though I suspect those needle marks on his ass

had something to do with that little tantrum, well that and you usually don’t tell the star of the

football team no.

Easy

Bitch

They just don’t get it; they don’t know why I am like I am. Do they think I want to be this

way, I was made this way! I use sex to feel something, to get rid of the numbness that has settled

inside me. They don’t get that I have to sleep around I have to make myself like this. I need to let

those nobodies paw me and use me. I need to make myself dirty, disgusting. Everybody has

specific needs that have to be filled in order to survive; my needs are just a little different than

others.

Why don’t you just leave her alone? Do you know her story? No, didn’t think

so you have no clue what she has been through so back off. Maggie, these

bitches don’t know anything, ignore these people, be strong, and hope

things get better!

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I have one defender, a statement of encouragement written in blue ink. Funny that I don’t

know her, but in her few little words I can tell she knows me better than anyone ever has. She’s

right though, they don’t know my story. What I go home to is completely unique. These people

don’t go to bed at night scared; terrified that he may come home from work, drunk. That he will

stumble down the hallway stopping outside of my door. They don’t know that I will stare up at

my ceiling holding my breath, praying that he will keep moving down the hall. I will hear him

fiddling with the door knob, the swinging of the door, how his belt jingles as he unbuckles his

pants. I will see his pants drop to the floor as he stumbles closer. I will feel the bed dip and his

hands slide up my night gown. He will lean close to my ear and whisper in his whiskey breath

how I’m his angel his daddy’s girl. I will stare back up to the ceiling and let the tears slide down

my cheeks as the bed knocks against the wall.

When he has had his fill he will tuck me in, kiss my cheek, tells me he loves me, then he

walks out closing the door behind him. I will roll over, wipe the tears off my face and go to sleep

knowing that a new day starts tomorrow, and tomorrow brings a new guy to play with, to wipe

away all of the things my father did to me, to give me back control, at least until he gets drunk

again.

So now you know my story, the story those bitches will never know. Those who judge

me and think me a slut, they will never know the parts I hide inside. They couldn’t pull

themselves away from their self-absorbed, conceited world, to look beyond the surface. Thing is

I really don’t care; I do what I have to in order to survive that’s human nature. For now I will

continue doing what I have been doing, your opinions and snide remarks don’t bother me. I

won’t feel bad anymore for my decisions. I have one person who understands me, whoever she

is, she gets it, gets me. I’m not alone and that gives me the strength to begin taking control of my

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life outside of the bedroom, and that’s starting here with me, a black marker and a room full of

insults.

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Seeing Red

Oh my God, what did I do? I didn’t seriously hit her did I? I wouldn’t do that. I’m not like that. I

would never hit a girl, I wasn’t raised that way.

I look down at my hands to see cuts on my knuckles, blood covers my hands. I did it, I hit

her. But why is it all so damn fuzzy? One minute I was fine then she said something that made

me see red and then nothing, its blank. She is so stupid, why did she have to piss me off she

knows I have a temper. This is all of her fault; she just couldn’t keep her damn mouth shut.

What were we even fighting about; I can only remember bits and pieces. We were at

homecoming; she looked beautiful in a silver green dress that showed off all of her assets. Her

brown hair was curled and laid on her shoulders, I wanted to run my fingers through it, and her

green eyes were shining, and I wanted to look her in the eye and see more than just happiness.

She was so happy to be there with me, Sloan Mitchell, star quarterback of Nickel High School.

Damn if we weren’t the perfect couple, the cheerleader and the football star. I couldn’t have

asked for more. The night flew by, a lot of dancing and laughing. I remember kissing her during

the slow song after we won homecoming king and queen. It was all so perfect, so how did I end

up hurting her?

After the dance we rode with her friends to the Truck Stop, its tradition to get breakfast

after the dance. We shared pancakes, she loves pancakes. So how did we get from maple syrup to

copper smelling blood? So where did it go wrong, what set me off, come on Sloan think! What

the hell did she do to piss me off? I’m so damn angry I can’t think straight. I need to calm down:

1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3 big breath in, exhale. Okay now what did she do….. she told me no. She said I

couldn’t stay with her, that her parents were home and I needed to go home. For some reason

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that sent me over the edge, made me lose it. I told our friends to so the car and I got out. I knew I

was going to do something stupid. She kept yelling for me to get in the car, and I told her to shut

the fuck up and go home. Eventually my friends said fuck it and left me to walk the five miles

home.

I can’t believe she actually let them leave me, that bitch. Didn’t she know I just needed to

cool off. I just needed five minutes not a five mile hike home. My anger just kept building and

building until I was no longer myself. I didn’t even mean to go to her house, I was just so mad I

couldn’t think straight and I needed her to calm me down.

I climbed up the dog cage, it was right outside her second story window. Her roof

connects just under the ledge so it was a pretty easy thing to do. I looked in her window to see

her asleep, ASLEEP! I just walked five miles to see her and she didn’t even worry enough to

stay up. I could have been hit by a car and that idiot went to sleep. I opened the window to her

room and climbed in, and I grabbed her by her hair and ripped her out of that bed. I covered her

mouth to keep her from screaming, I wanted to run my fingers through her hair all night and

instead I had ahold of that hair so tight I could feel the hairs ripping from her scalp. I let her

know it was me and she stopped resisting, when I felt sure I she wouldn’t scream and wake up

her parents I let go of her, but keeping hold of her wrist to make her face me. I knew the look in

her eyes wouldn’t be that of happiness or lust but instead the look a baby seal has in its eyes right

before a great white chomps it up for a meal. I was going to make her talk to me and I knew I

couldn’t in her room so I grab her wrist harder and begin pulling her to the window. I try pulling

her through but her arm is braced against the frame and her thigh is stuck against something.

“Please Sloan just let me go, we can talk tomorrow”

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“I’m not fucking going anywhere, you left me to walk”, I say through clenched jaws.

“I didn’t want to leave you. They made me, but you have to go my parents will hear us, and they

are still not happy with you for the whole cheating on me thing. They almost didn’t let me go to

the dance with you.”

“That’s why you won’t let me stay, you’re still pissed about that? You said you forgave me”

“Please just go”, she chokes on a sob.

“Come outside and talk to me”

“Okay Sloan, go out front and I’ll come outside, okay baby? Just please calm down.”

I crawl down the roof and scale back down the dog cage. Looking around I saw a curtain

fall from the house next door. That stupid goth bitch, Janie something, needs to mind her own

damn business. She’s lucky I didn’t go next door and drag her out by her inky black hair.

My attention snaps to the door as Stephanie comes out, her eyes are lined red and her face

is splotchy. She has those raccoon eyes a girl gets when her eyeliner gets wet. She’s so good at

playing the victim, when I was the one who had to walk home. I stalk closer to her thinking I can

tell her sorry for the way I acted, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to kiss her ass and it sure won’t

be the last. As I get closer she steps back, I lift my hand to brush her cheek and she flinches away

from me. She flinched away from me, and from there it all went down hill. I grabbed her by her

hair and yanked her to her knees, loving the look in her eyes when she realized what was about

to happen. I placed myself behind her and slammed her to the concrete floor, hearing her teeth

crack against the sidewalk.

“Sloan please get off of me this isn’t you.” She voice is muffled.

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“You fucking flinched away from me, well now you have a fucking reason to flinch you stupid

bitch” I say this as I dig my knee in her back. I can hear her crying and that just makes the rage

so much worse. I lift her head and slam it back into the pavement; the snap of the bone in her

nose makes my jaw tick. I flip her over and see the blood gushing from the break she just

received, and the red that now stains her teeth is evident as she looks up at me. Tears streaming

down her cheeks, washing the red and fading it to pink.

“Get the fuck off of me Sloan, get the fuck off of me you stupid bastard!” She screams

hitting me with her fists, how she is still moving is beyond me, for as hard as I hit her head she

should be out. I look her in the eyes as I grab her hands bending the fingers back to the point of

breaking, trying to get her to stop fighting me. The violence I feel is so overwhelming that I

shove myself off of her and turn ramming my fist into the tree next to us. When I turn around

Stephanie is up and stumbling towards me, the look of fear has left her eyes and in them now is a

look of cold determination, the roles switching, she draws her fist back and slams it into my jaw.

“Leave Sloan and never come back, we are through.” With that she turn and walks away from

me, up her stairs and through the door. I fall to my knees the rage that filled me now gone

leaving me with nothing but exhaustion and I black out and fall. Next thing I know I’m getting

woken up by that stupid goth bitch and being told I need to leave now and then I’m left

wondering home trying to figure out what they hell just happened.

Why didn’t coach tell me that this would happen, he told me those shots would help me

get stronger, win football games, he never told me that I would hurt the ones I cared about, he

only told me I couldn’t let him down. Now I’m left with a broken hand, a broken heart, and a girl

I broke beyond repair.

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Black, Blue & Bleeding All Over

I stare up at my ceiling counting the glowing stars that I put up there in forth grade. They

always help to put me to sleep, but tonight they are helping me to stay awake. I am patiently

waiting for all of the noise inside the house to die away, letting me know that I am safe to go to

the bathroom down the hall. I keep counting my stars trying to not focus on the pain that is lacing

through my body right now. When I am sure that I can get by their room undetected I get up

creeping across the floor hoping that this ancient house won’t creak loud enough to wake the

dead. I reach for the door and hear my mom rising out of her bed, I hear her shuffle down the

hall and close the door to the bathroom. Keeping as still as I can I hear the door open and her

heading back to her bedroom, the hesitation in her step lets me know that she is heading to my

room instead, I launch myself back into the bed, throw the blanket over my head and turn on my

side, feeling the fabric scrape across my face, holding back the tears as the pain once again

streaks through me. The door to my room rattles and squeaks on the hinges, she is only checking

on me I know this but at the moment I just wish she would leave. The door clicks closed and her

feet once again shuffle across the floor into her room. I turn back up to my stars and start

counting again.

After what seems like forever I rise once again, turn the knob to the bedroom door, and

book it to the bathroom, slamming the door closed and locking it behind me. Leaning against it I

breathe in and out trying to keep from crying. The door to my parents room opens again as my

mom makes her way back to the bathroom.

“Stephanie, are you okay?” she asks.

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Lying I say”Yeah mom I just don’t feel good, I think I ate too many pancakes for dinner.” With

a sigh she goes back to her room and leaves me in peace.

I walk towards the sink and hesitate before looking into the mirror, I know what is going

to be staring back at me, and I look up and face the devastation that is now my face. He really

did a number on me this time, both my eyes are starting to blacken and red swelling is all over

my face. There is a straight wide gash on the bridge of my nose; blood has dried in a trail down

my face where the blood once gushed.

He never used to be like this he used to be sweet and patient. I can remember when I first

met him. It was two summers ago down at the local skate, I used to go down there with my

friend Janie, and he was beautiful. He had long curly blond hair that hung just slightly in his

face; he had blue eyes that were always shining with happiness. He had this crooked smile that

you only got flashed when he was really happy or when he was being cocky. His skin was

golden brown from lying out in the sun, and that tan looked great on those wash board abs of his.

I wanted him to notice me so badly and I knew I was nothing special just another girl that he

never noticed before. Sloan Mitchell was a sophomore and the star quarterback, some lowly

freshman wasn’t on his radar. So color me surprised when he started to show me some attention,

and when he decided to ask me out, I remember he was looking down when he asked me out,

like he was too shy to look me in the eye and ask. That’s how it all began, for a year and a half

he was sweet tempered and he definitely wasn’t angry.

I look down from the mirror and turn on the sink, grabbing a washcloth from the side

draw, after wetting it I begin to wash away the crusted blood slowly. As the red fades to pink and

then back to porcelain I begin to notice the injuries that weren’t so apparent before. There is a

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rash on my cheek, from where the pavement was glued to my skin, there is still dirt and stone

embedded into the wound. I stare back up into the mirror and start to pluck the debris from my

skin.

Sloan changed six months ago, it was like a switch was flipped and the guy I loved just

disappeared. He was no longer happy all of the time and he would get angry so quickly. I didn’t

really notice it until we got into a fight one night over which movie to choose for our date. It was

something so stupid but he lost it and the next thing I knew my cheek was burning and there was

a slow trail of warmth creeping from my eyebrow. He had hit me; the shock on his face told me

all I needed to know. He was a shocked as I was he stared down at his hand as if it was offensive

to him and looked to me to see how I was going to react. I just sent him home and let him know

it was okay. The next day at school I had to cover it with foundation so every few hours I made

my way to the bathroom to touch it up.

One trip still stands out in my mind, I made my way to the bathroom and when I looked

around I saw Janie sitting in one of the stall turned writing with a blue pen with a look of pure

focus on her face as she wrote quickly. After freshman year she and I went our separate ways me

becoming a cheerleader and her just getting darker and darker. I stare at her through the mirror

and she looked at me,

“You know you don’t have to put up with that shit right?” Janie said.

“What do you know, you don’t even know me.”

She turns back to the stall wall and says so quietly “I used to.”

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I should have listened to her then, but I still felt I needed to be with him. He was just

going through something and I could save him. How wrong was I?

The image in the mirror is a little better than before, I’m still puffy and swollen but the

blood has washed away under the facet. The girl in the mirror is completely changed from

before; he really did a whammy on me. The cuts on my face will heal but the damage he did

tonight will scar me forever. Tonight was the last straw all of this over me telling him no what

kind of man does this? I don’t want to tell mom but some of these injuries are going to need

medical attention. So I turn around and shuffle down the hallway and knock on my parent’s door,

knowing the face that they are going to see is going to be the one I saw in the mirror.

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Invisible

You don’t know me; I bet you couldn’t even tell me my name. My face when seen

doesn’t even spark recognition in your eyes. I’m the girl in the middle of the classroom blending

into the surroundings, the one who doesn’t answer questions in class, not bothering to really, for

I know that not even the teacher can tell you my name.

I have gone unnoticed for sixteen years, blending into the background; being thrown

away by people I called friends and never getting a simple thank you for the ones that I tried to

help. Envying the student who is bullied, because at least that attention proves they exist. No one

will remember me. When my classmates look back at the worn, faded pictures of their year

books, their eyes will glide over my picture, not even bothering to take a second to wonder who I

am or if I even came to school.

I am the girl misses school, just hoping to gain some sort of attention, praying that

someone will notice my absence, yet knowing they won’t. I’m the girl whose parents will never

attend a parent/teacher conference. They won’t take pictures before a homecoming dance, or

applaud at my graduation. I’m the child they never wanted, their mistake. Even in my own home

I am invisible, unwanted, and not worth a second glance.

My name is Janie Doe. I am sixteen years old, a junior in high school. I love animals and

my favorite color is blue. I am real, I breathe, and I bleed. I exist. Every time you looked through

me I disappeared a little more, becoming a figment of your imagination, a figure you see out of

the corner of your eye.

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Why? I’m sure you are wondering what this all means, why should you care? My

classmates should care, because one Monday morning over the intercom they will hear my name,

followed by a silent moment for my lost life. My teachers should care because when asked if

there were any signs of my depression, and they will look sad and say no because they won’t

admit that they don’t even remember me, that they failed me. Finally my parents should care

because when they come home after yet another night of drinking to find my blood splattered on

their dingy yellow walls. My body still warm on their bed, gun still in hand and no note to say

goodbye, you can’t say goodbye when no one knows you when nobody ever saw you.