The
Rosetta Stone is a piece of black basalt found in Egypt with an identical message carved in
three different languages. It was approximately two-and-a-half feet wide and four feet long.
Carved in 196 BC, the text is written in hieroglyphic (the script used by Egyptian priests for
religious purposes), demotic (the language that common Egyptians used), and ancient
Greek.
The Rosetta Stone...
In s short
story , the young woman called Jig
is being pressured by her older male companion, usually
called simply the
man, to have an abortion. Although it is obvious that Jig would prefer to
keep the baby, she never directly and emphatically tells the man that this is her
desire.
Instead, she often uses sarcasm to imply her reluctance to go through
with the
abortion.
Why does Jig rely on sarcasm rather
than openly and forcefully
stating her mind? Several possible explanations
suggest themselves, and some of them reinforce
one another. Among the
possible reasons for Jigs indirectness are the following:
Would
you please, please, please, please, please,
please, please stop
talking?
Clearly, Jig is increasingly
agitated as the story evolves, and her decision to use sarcasm is a passive-aggressive
strategy
rather than an assertively aggressive strategy.
The fact that Jigs motives
for using sarcasm are so plausibly
various is testimony to the complexity of the characters
Hemingway has
created even in such a very brief tale.
The
proximate (most direct) cause of the Terror was the rise to power of the radical Jacobin faction
within the National Convention in 1793. These politicians had the support of the
sans-culottes, the Parisian working class, and they were able to use this
broad base of political support to prevail over moderate factions, sometimes known as the
Girondins. The Jacobins instituted radical reforms that included price supports and instituted
the Committee of Public Safety to run the country. The Committee, as well as local revolutionary
councils, famously sent tens of thousands of supposed enemies of the Revolution to their deaths,
most memorably using the guillotine. The Terror did not end until it consumed its own leaders,
as Maximilian Robespierre and others were themselves guillotined in 1794. To understand the
deeper origins of the Terror, however, we must remember that it took place in a time of extreme
crisis for the Revolution. In the words of one historian, the Committee was essentially formed
to serve as a "war cabinet." France was at war with almost all the monarchies of
Europe, and confronted a massive revolt in the Vendee region. Faced with spiraling inflation and
food shortages, setbacks on the battlefield, and mob violence that was completely out of
control, the Terror was in no small part an attempt to establish order (albeit a radical order)
to a Revolution and a nation beset with chaos.
In Volume II, Chapter
II of ,first comes into contact withsince his "birth." The
Creature does not face a very warm welcome from Victor (given Victor believes him to be
responsible for the deaths of bothand Justine).
The
relationship betweenand her father is clearly an abusive one, and it does very much reflect the
expectations of how women were treated and expected to behave in 20th Century Ireland. Eveline
is struggling with this internal conflict over whether she should stay in her miserable, abusive
life caring for her father in Ireland, or run away that very day with Frank to Buenos Ayres.
Joyce shows us their relationship through only specific lines and short memories Eveline recalls
as she is sitting, looking out the window contemplating her decision. Her position by the window
alone shows us that she is trapped by this promise she made to her dying mother that she would
look after the household. This is a very typical promise for an Irish daughter to make back
then, especially being the eldest. This is what daughters would do. Their hopes and dreams
(which mostly consisted of getting married and having children) came second to the plans their
fathers already had for them. Eveline is doomed from the start because she is the eldest female
and her mother is dead.
Here is where the reader first starts to understand
Eveline's relationship with her father: "Even now, though she was over nineteen, she
sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence." This shows us that she is
literally terrified. She lives a sad life with him, where she does not feel loved or even safe.
Later, she mentions that this is why she has started having "the
palpitations."
Yet, like many abused wives and children are known to do,
she tries to rationalize how her father really does love her, even though he is abusive, cruel
and selfish toward her. It says, "Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would
miss her." Here, Eveline is beginning to guilt herself into staying. She uses this and two
memories of times when her father wasn't so bad (made her laugh once when her mother was alive
and made her toast once when she was sick) to justify to herself why she shouldn't leave him.
This seems ludicrous to the reader. In all of her life, she can only really remember two times
when her father was somewhat nice to her.
Her father hates Frank because, of
course, he wants Eveline to stay at home and continue cleaning the house taking care of the
cooking and shopping. "It was hard work--a hard life--but now that she was about to leave
it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life," (p.33).
Frank is the
exact opposite of her father. "Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He
would save her," (p. 35). Frank is filled with life and wants to take Eveline all over the
world. She would actually have a chance at living her life, experiencing happiness and love, the
exact opposite of what she will experience staying in Dublin with her father.
But she cannot go. Joyce craftily continues to show us that she is dead inside already
and is doomed to live and die in Dublin. He describes her frozen at the end of the book,
paralyzed by her fear of leaving her cruel father and breaking the promise made to her
mother.
Eveline is one of many sad characters that Joyce uses throughout
The to paint pictures of what life was like in 20th Century Dublin. He
also wrote these stories based on his own experiences with people he actually knew and
encountered. I am sure he knew many women like Eveline, who struggled with this very
conflict.
Upon
receiving an invitation to a ball, Madame Loisel buys a new dress and borrows a necklace from a
friend. She has a lovely time at the ball dancing and attracting the attention of the gentlemen.
As she and her husband return home, she realizes she is no longer wearing the necklace. They
search their clothing, and her husband retraces their steps, but they are unable to find it.
After finding a similar necklace at a shop, Madame Loisel and her husband pay thirty-six
thousand francs for a replacement.
Madame Loisel's husband has eighteen
thousand francs from an inheritance but has to borrow the remainder of the money.
In order to pay back the money, he continues his position as a clerk in the
Ministry of Education and works evenings as an accountant and a
copier.
The fact
that the government has so much control over their lives is what drivesandtogether in the first
place. They aren't driven together over mutual attraction; Winston is older and pretty
unappealing, and Julia isn't that pretty. There is no freedom for them to be attracted to each
other based on similar interests or values, and even talking to each other at all is
suspicious. What drives them together is a mutual hatred of political control. They hate the
Party. They want to act out against it, and...
