Jackie Dugan
Jon Endicott
Lit 181, Exploring Literature
26, August 2011
The Choice
When a person is faced with less than desirable circumstances, there is always a choice. They can choose to take the next step forward with integrity and perseverance or they can choose to step out and begin to create a parallel reality. Even doing nothing is a choice; a choice that each person must make on their own. In “Barbie – Q”, Cisneros provides us a look into the reality of walking in integrity and perseverance, while Chekhov shows how some individuals are able to step out and find solace in a parallel reality as in “The Lady with the Little Dog”.
The innocence of young children playing with dolls is overshadowed by the hard reality that they are living in poverty. While poverty is not the end of the world, it can be a very difficult thing for a person to rise above. The cruelness of society has a way of causing an individual to seek an opportunity to rise above the social status that they can find themselves in. They find themselves drawn to the equality of existence; however, they only seem to achieve it merely through fantasy or make believe, “Every time the same story. Your Barbie is roommates with my Barbie, and my Barbie’s boyfriend comes over and your Barbie steals him, okay? Kiss kiss kiss. Then the two Barbie’s fight. You Dumbell! He’s mine. Oh no he’s not, you stinky! Only Ken’s invisible right?”(Cisneros 1) It isn’t until they find themselves staring into the eyes of their tomorrow that they are able to see that the decisions that they have made, has prepared the way for them to find themselves standing one step closer to equality.
The Term Paper on Perception Of Reality
Each of the three authors, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Beckett, and C.S. Lewis are able to create their own perception of reality through the manipulation of characters and use of literary devices. However, reality is an individual concept and thus each author has a distinct perception of it that becomes apparent in his writing: in Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, Alice goes beyond ...
The choice to be content and to make the best of what they had, proved to be rewarding. Not allowing societies to dictate to them their happiness, they continue to live internally equal to the other children around them looking forward to the next opportunity to add to their belongings, “Until next Sunday when we are walking through the flea market on Maxwell Street and there!”(Cisneros 1) Lying in the mist of other things, they would see what would soon complete their doll family. The joy of fulfillment overwhelming within them; yet they continue to maintain their composure on the outside while one the inside they are jubilant, “On the outside you and me are skipping and humming, but inside we are doing loopity-loops and pirouetting.” (Cisneros 2)
The compromise that they chose to accept by purchasing the dolls that had been slightly damaged left a feeling of accomplishment and acceptance. They now could play like all the other children did with dolls, even a Ken doll. The external damage and smell of the dolls did not stop them from realizing that they now had what they had long awaited for and that it would work just as well as a new one, “And if the prettiest doll, Barbie’s Modern cousin Francie with real eyelashes, eyelash brush included, has a left foot that’s melted a little-so? If you dress her in her new Prom Pinks’ outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt clutch and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress, right? – who’s to know.” (Cisneros 2)
Finding what you think you have been looking for; however, it is not what it always seems to be nor does it always conclude with the feeling of accomplishment and acceptance. In Chekhov “The Lady with the Little Dog”, Anna finds herself staring into the face of inquiry, “That’s only the fashion to say it is dull here. A provincial will live in Belyov or Zhidra and not be dull, and when he comes here it’s ‘oh, the dullness! Oh, the dust!’ One would think he came from Grenada.” (Chekhov 2) Only now Anna has to decide if she will continue to flirt with this appearance of fullness or resolve herself to retreat to the familiarity of dullness.
The Essay on Difference In Response To The Doll House
Difference in Response to The Doll House A Dolls House is a play written by Henrik Ibsen in 1879 depicting the marriage between Nora and Torvald Helmer. Nora and Torvald fell in love with the conceptions of each other, not their real selves, which in the end causes the marriage to fall apart when they are faced with reality. A Dolls House is set in nineteenth-century Europe. It is the story of ...
Chekhov peruses the appearance of fullness as Anna continues to meet up with Gurov and they eventually find themselves swept up in the emotions of the moment. Anna to involved to think about what next,
“to what had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though it were her fall—so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate. Her face dropped and faded, and on both sides of it her long hair hung down mournfully: she mused in a dejected attitude like the “woman who was a sinner” in an old-fashioned picture,” (Chekhov 4)
finds herself standing in disbelief struggling with her moral beliefs, “It’s wrong.” (Chekhov 4)
The need for Anna to find further fulfillment in her life has caused her to step out and reach into areas that she might not have considered before. Now that she is there, Anna is sorrowful for her choices, yet still intrigued by the possibilities of what is to come. Even as she was returning home, Anna seemed to struggle with her decision, “It is a good thing I am going away, she said to Gurov. It’s the finger of destiny!” (Chekhov 6) “I shall remember you…think of you.” (Chekhov 6) Clearly Anna is trapped, suspended between two worlds that are running parallel to one another, waiting to see if at any point they might intersect.
When Gurov showed up in Petersburg, Anna is faced with the intersection of her two worlds. Fearful of the crumbling of the life that she knew as well as loosing what she might be able to have, Anna again is faced with a choice, to walk in integrity and perseverance or once again step out into this parallel world that has been created, “You must go away,” (Chekhov 11) “I will come see you in Moscow.” (Chekhov 11) From that time forward, Anna continued to choose to live a parallel life, unable to give either world one hundred percent of how she really was.
“Don’t cry, my darling,” he said. “You’ve had your cry; that’s enough….Let us talk now, let us think of some plan.” Then they spent a long while taking counsel together, talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long at a time. How could they be free from this intolerable bondage?” (Chekhov 13)
The Term Paper on World Picture Order Man Elizabethan
HAUSARBEITThe Elizabethan World Picture and the influence of order and disorder in Shakespeare's 'MACBETH " INDEX. THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE 1. Introduction Page 3 2. The Elizabethan World Picture Page 3 3.The Cosmos Page 5 4. Hierarchy Page 7 4. 1 Vertical Hierarchy Page 7 4. 2 Horizontal Hierarchy Page 10 5. Critisicm Page 11 II. SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH 1.Introduction Page 13 2. The influence ...
The pursuit of things that appears better than what we already have can be deceptive. Many times the world and society has a way of painting a vivid picture of what appears to be a better life. In actuality the picture that is being painted is only one dimensional and we live in a three dimensional world that is waiting to be completed. The choice is up to us how our picture will look when it is finished. Will it be filled with laughter, color and light as portrayed in Cisneros’ “Barbie – Q” or will our pictures display shadows of regrets as if winter has set in to stay as in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog”. The choice is ours, What will it be?