blog wk two
A: Reflection: The narrator conveys a sense that she is capable and does perform tasks of a male expected at her age. She performs the duties better than her younger brother and she has a maturity of the situation to be subjective of her family’s life of fox farming and some other realities that are life. “In boys and girls” there seems to be a running expectation through the story that there are global expectations in the roles of the different sexes but the reality is much more blurry due to situation. The narrator in the story will lose her apparent freedom in the outside world helping her father, for unwanted work with her mother trapped inside. The inside living space is given a feeling by the author of insecurity and shabbiness especially at night while a beautiful and safe world rests outside, emphasising good with the outside and all things free, shabbiness and oppression with the indoors. There are reinforcements from the characters mother and grandmother about female expected behaviour and skill. In the characters mind she sees it as doom to come, instead of time with her lonely indoor labouring mother. The wanting of her parents to trust the brother so he can take over the author’s chores helps push her mind to a finality of her moving inside. Even the authors own dreams betray her towards female behaviour or being the women in distress needing to be rescued. There seems to be internal and external pressures to point her towards the tasks and roles she should be performing. Letting the horse go at the end of the story sends a mixed message of loyalty to herself and her family. The acceptance of her father’s light-heartedness towards the burden she knowingly placed on him gave a final blow to her life in the outdoors because “she is only a girl”, this also reinforces the global pressure of the system that sees her as the weaker sex as part of the order of things.
B: Looking ahead: In “the boat” the main character runs against what is expected of him by shunning a life of fishing. The story follows the same theme of expectations of society and family as “boys and girls”. Researching Eustacia Vya from “Return of the native” reveals a story of society’s status structure and the wants of the female character to escape her situation, in the end only helping lead her to her death. She tries to marry and scheme to find ways around her situation but ends up drowning by mistake or by her own hand out of despair. A similar theme of death and water are shared by all the characters in the other stories. In “Moby Dick”, similar to “the boat” the story is based in the fishing culture of the NE Atlantic and drowning situations are present. The character Ham Peggoty in “David Copperfield” shares fishing as an occupation taken up from his uncle, similar to “the boat”. His ending is tragic and in the water much like the father in “the boat”. He also is recognized for his place in the social order and even though he is trodden on by life, he still sacrifices himself to save the ship wrecked, including someone that has done him nothing but evil.
B: Looking ahead: In “the boat” the main character runs against what is expected of him by shunning a life of fishing. The story follows the same theme of expectations of society and family as “boys and girls”. Researching Eustacia Vya from “Return of the native” reveals a story of society’s status structure and the wants of the female character to escape her situation, in the end only helping lead her to her death. She tries to marry and scheme to find ways around her situation but ends up drowning by mistake or by her own hand out of despair. A similar theme of death and water are shared by all the characters in the other stories. In “Moby Dick”, similar to “the boat” the story is based in the fishing culture of the NE Atlantic and drowning situations are present. The character Ham Peggoty in “David Copperfield” shares fishing as an occupation taken up from his uncle, similar to “the boat”. His ending is tragic and in the water much like the father in “the boat”. He also is recognized for his place in the social order and even though he is trodden on by life, he still sacrifices himself to save the ship wrecked, including someone that has done him nothing but evil.