Well Rounded Petruchio

Petruchio is a round character in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. He comes onto the stage as a man who is very interested in the challenge of courting a young woman, Katherine, whom he only knows to be a horrible person with a rich father. He sets his eyes on his bag of gold and nothing he hears about Katherine can deter him from wanting to acquire her. He meets up with his old friend Hortensio who wants him to wed Katherine. Hortensio goes on to describe her as "a shrewd ill-favored wife... intolerable curst, and shrewd, and froward, so beyond all measure that, were my state far worser than it is, I would not wed her for a mine of gold...Renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue," to which Petruchio responds, "I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her." This makes Petruchio seem a bit odd right from the start. It seems as if the more he hears about how horrible this woman is, the more he wants her. He is not only greedy, but he seems to relish the challenge of Katherine. He is one of the only characters who really moves the story forward because he takes on the challenge in a very flamboyant fashion and he has very strong character traits that allow him to act in ways that create friction and action. He shows up at his wedding attired in a way made to humiliate Katherine at her own wedding, then goes on to treat her as an animal in order to tame her.

The amazing thing about Petruchio is that he is such an oddball, and treats people with such disrespect, yet his plan actually works... and works well! He does marry Katherine, an act which allows another portion of the story to move forward, that of Katherine's sister Bianca's marriage; he then goes on to tame her and make her into an obedient and gentle wife. He starts out with the woman no other man would want, and turns her into the one they all wish they had.

Setting The Stage For Disaster

In act 4 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Grumio takes on the chore of spelling out for the audience the scenes from the forest that we are unable to see. Petruchio and Katherine are on their way home from the wedding, riding horses through the forsest - a Shakespearian stage is not very accomodating and this type of scene would have been nearly impossible to create. Instead of seeing what transpires between Petruchio and Katherine on their journey, it is almost more vivid to have it described by Grumio in his candid and foolish manner. Since he is a servant, he takes on a more comical role than the more serious upper-class characters. Grumo returns to the home and begins to tell one of the other servants what has taken place off stage. First off, he makes it very evident that it is very cold out, he calls himself "a piece of ice." Repetetively asks for a fire, and sets the scene so that the audience knows what to expect of the weather outside of Petruchio's home (which is the scene staged in front of them at that moment.)

Grumio goes on to describe in vivid detail how awful the ride home was for Katherine. He says to Curtis, "thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed that never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran away..." Grumio lists pitfall after pitfall, mostly begining each entry of the list with "how" to allow the audience to "see" what took place on that journey and to hear just how many things went wrong. After being humiliated by her groom at her wedding, we now can expect to see how Petruchio is establishing himself in a dominating role over Katherine and how he plans to tame her.

Eveline's Stagnation

In James Joyce’s “Eveline”, the title character finds herself debating whether to leave her comfortable, yet oppressed life as a single woman who is not respected in her community and is not happy; or to marry her lover, Frank and move to Buenos Aires with him. Eveline is not in love with Frank, but she sees him as a savior who can free her from her destitute life. She grew up serving her family after her mother died, her father was abusive and Eveline’s responsibilities to her family were tremendous. The expectations of her father were unrealistic at best and he was emotionally and physically abusive to his children. The house they grew up in was tended to by Eveline, as she had made a promise to her mother “to keep the home together as long as she could”. It seems that Eveline had kept her family together, but at this point, her brothers were no longer living in the family home and although Eveline was free to leave it as she had certainly kept her promise, she felt a duty to endure her father’s expectations of her. However, Eveline found comfort in that house, the home that she was disrespected in for most of her life. She had come to believe that she was only worth what her father had made her feel she was worth.

Eveline’s epiphany may be her moment of realization that she won’t change when she moves to Buenos Aires with Frank. She will not instantly become happy and respected; she will still feel the same, only now, she will be in an unfamiliar place with a man she doesn’t love. If she is still going to be the same old Eveline, maybe she should stay where she is comfortable. Perhaps this epiphany does create some sort of change, even though Eveline’s decision is to not change. It seems that this epiphany may have actually given Eveline some motivation to make a decision, even though the decision she made was to become paralyzed instead of to move forward. Eveline seems to feel some sense of duty to her unhappy life. She is afraid to become someone else, or even to have that kind of hope for herself because her father trampled her self-confidence far too flat for her to believe in herself. She can’t even allow Frank to give her the future she dreamt of because it would be too nice for her and she can’t possibly deserve it. Although her childhood was not a happy one, she is comfortable being subjective to her father, and she is comfortable in stagnation. Her epiphany causes her to become paralyzed, she cannot leave her gloomy identity. In the end, she is left behind, “she gripped with both hands at the iron railing” and was “like a helpless animal” – which is how Joyce presented most women in Ireland at that time, whether it was the brutal reality, or his exaggeration of a time and place he despised.

Sympathy for the Pathetic

Gregor Samsa awakens one morning as a bug. Up until this point, he has been toiling away his life in order to support his lazy, deceitful family. Gregor goes to work each morning at the crack of dark, he despises his job as a traveling salesman, dislikes the people he works for, and he is expected to continue working at this job as an indentured servant until his family’s debt is paid off.

Gregor is being taken advantage of by his family. His father was an incompetent business owner, and when his business failed, he took no action to get another job “he had done no work for the past five years and could not be expected to do much… he had grown rather fat and become sluggish”. He simply stashed away what money he had and decided to live the life of leisure by having luxurious breakfasts “for breakfast was the most important meal of the day to Gregor’s father, who lingered it out for hours over various newspapers”. Gregor’s mother and sister probably could have taken jobs if it had been necessary, but since Gregor was taking on the burden, they sat back and let him, plus, since his mother had asthma “which kept her laying on the sofa every other day” and Grete’s life “consisted of dressing herself nicely, sleeping long, helping in the household, going out to a few modest enterainments, and above all, playing the violin” what was an obedient son to do? 

Even when Gregor finds out that his father has enough money for the family to survive on for at least a couple of years, he is so naive that he tells himself that his father was smart to have stashed the money away, he “rejoiced at the evidence of unexpected thrift and foresight”.   Instead of feeling resentment, Gregor feels pride that his father is so smart with his finances. Gregor should have been shocked and pissed off at this revelation, but he is not, he’s already a defeated shell of a man who’s life is no longer his own. 

Kafka has set up Gregor as a martyr in "The Metamorphosis". He wants his reader to feel some sympathy for Gregor. This sets up the plot of the story so that it unfolds in a way that at first, Gregor is perceived as vermin, but slowly, the reader gains insightful information that depicts Gregor as a hard-working, loyal son who has been taken advantage of by his own family. Eventually, we view Gregor as the one who is helpless and who needs his family to care for him instead of the other way around. We also notice that the quality of care his family gives him begins to decline and even becomes abusive until eventually, Gregor dies from injury and neglect.

Metamorphosis in Links

In Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa awakens one morning as an insect. Is he really a bug, or is this just some kind of metaphor? What else could Gregor be if he is not a bug? He is treated like an outcast by his own family, sheltered from the rest of the world and kept prisoner in his own home because no one wants to come into contact with him. Even his family members don’t want to touch him; “his father… set out to drive Gregor back into his room by waving the cane” once he finally makes it out of his room the morning of his metamorphosis. If he isn’t abug, he must be some sort of social deviant, and in most societies, incest is placed somewhere at the top of the list of deviance. Perhaps Gregor has been involved in an incestuous relationship with his little sister, Grete.

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The sole member of his family that retains any contact with Gregor is his sister. Even before the metamorphosis during his time as a traveling salesman “with his sister alone he had remained intimate”, we may take the word “intimate” for its literal meaning of "a usually secretive or illicit sexual relationship", rather than an alternative definition of simply “marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity".

At the conclusion of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Grete is promoted to the status Gregor once held in his family and the last line, “… their daughter got up first and stretched her young body" implies that she too may turn into a bug, the description of her body sounds almost like that of a caterpillar or worm.

Revised Cheeseburger

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses connotative language in “Young Goodman Brown” to deliver two meanings to his readers. First, the term “goodman” has a similar meaning to what we might call “mister” in today’s world. His choice makes a firm impression on the reader of the word “good” – we might even believe that Mr. Brown’s first name is Goodman. Hawthorne obviously made the choice to use the word “goodman” rather than “mister” to impress upon his reader that goodness is important to this story. The next example is much more meaningful and powerful. It is the use of the name “Faith” for Brown’s wife. Faith is not just a name; it is interchangeable for the definition of faith. “Faith” has numerous religious connotations, namely faith in God. “Faith” is also used to define one’s religion, such as “he is of the Christian faith,” it also implies trust, belief, confidence without solid evidence, and truth. This nuance allows the reader to assume multiple interpretations of meaning when Brown is crying out to his wife, “My Faith is gone!” or “But, where is Faith?” or when he uses her as his excuse for being late for his meeting, “Faith kept me back awhile.” Hawthorne’s choice to use names in this fashion illustrates that Brown is questioning his faith, and that the reader should recognize right from the start that this story has something significant to say about goodness.

• I changed some of the wording in my paragraph just to make it more concise and cohesive so it would tie together a little better.  I also changed my bottom bun (as suggested in my comments) to create more of a link to my opening sentence - I had originally only remarked on the tie in to the name "Faith" and didn't really include "goodman" to close up the paragraph.  
  

Young goodman Brown's Cheeseburger

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses connotative language in “Young Goodman Brown” to deliver two meanings to his readers. First, the term “goodman” has a similar meaning to what we would call “mister” in today’s world. His choice makes a firm impression on the reader of the word “good” – we might even believe that Mr. Brown’s first name is Goodman. Hawthorne obviously made the choice to use the word “goodman” rather than “mister” to impress upon his reader that goodness is important to this story. The next example is much more meaningful and powerful in this story. It is the use of the name “Faith” for Brown’s wife. Faith is not just a name; it is interchangeable for the definition of faith. “Faith” has religious connotations, namely faith in God or it is used to define one’s religion, such as “he is of the Christian faith,” it also implies trust, belief, confidence without solid evidence, and truth. This nuance allows the reader to assume multiple interpretations of meaning when Brown is crying out to his wife, “My Faith is gone!” or “But, where is Faith?” or when he uses her as his excuse for being late for his meeting, “Faith kept me back awhile.” This use of dual meanings allows Hawthorne to indicate that Brown is questioning his faith, rather than making comments about his wife.