And the Victim is...

Blanche and Stanley are victims of each other. Stanley is victimized by Blanche's superiority complex. She just showed up on his doorstep one day and ruined the status quo of Stella and his life. Blanche was full of lies and never told Stanley the truth. He was the last person she wanted to confide in. Blanche came in and took over his house by redecorating and drinking all of his alcohol. She provided no fiscal help to the household so she ended up being another person that Stanley had to support, against his will for a long period of time. He thought that he lost his share of money from Belle Reve due to Blanche's extravagant spending habits and felt left out of some fortune because Blanche had mismanaged everything making him a victim of Blanche's inability to manage money. Once she came in she made no effort to leave quickly and was not at all nice to her host. From day one, she berated Stanley and dismissed him as someone of an inferior class, a "Polack". Blanche created a lot of unnecessary drama in Stanley's house and she was unwilling to face her own reality, even though she saw herself as inferior to Stanley she was in no way better than him.

Even though Blanche saw herself as a superior being, she was a victim to her own lack of self control, which ended up being Stanley's primary tool against her. She lost everything. She lost the house that she grew up in that had been in her family for generations. Blanche lost her husband and her job. She ended up being kicked out of the town that her entire life had been based in. Blanche's lack of understanding made her feel like a victim when her marriage was slightly off and her husband killed himself. She did not know how to help him or herself and she let her life fall apart around her. There was no one to support her lavish habits and she lost Belle Reve for financial reasons. Blanche then went on to make other people her victims to maintain her sense of superiority, but while doing that she made herself seem more awful, thus victimizing herself further. By sleeping with her seventeen year old student, she used him and would normally be thought of as a suspect, but it caused her to lose her job, so she once again became the victim. Blanche prostituted herself at the Flamingo where she could hide from the socialites who knew her, but that only lasted so long as her reputation ended up getting her kicked out of town. She showed up on her sister's doorstep and Stanley did not welcome her at all. She was a bit of an instigator as she called him inferior names, but he ended up living up to those names throughout the story. Stanley verbally tortured her to get the truth out of her because he never believed her and then when he found out the truth from someone he worked with he thought that to be valid over what she said. Blanche was having a fine time with Mitch when Stanley ruined their relationship. Blanche's victimization can most easily be seen at the end of the story when she was raped by Stanley and then taken to a mental institution. He used and abused her, regardless of how much stress she might have caused him as an awful houseguest, that left him no right to live up to his brute reputation and rape her. Shortly after that, a doctor and nurse came in to take her to a mental institution. She was clearly unstable and was being dragged off to a foreign place by strangers. Blanche victimized herself and Stanley made her even more of a victim while suffering through Blanche's presence and the insecurities she inflicted on him.

Southern Belle turned to Fear

Blanche is more than just a delusional, aging debutante. Her relationship with Mitch exemplifies her desire to settle down and be taken care of. Even though that may come with age, it also comes with the fact that she has just lost everything and needs to be dependent on someone other than a family member. Her dependence on Stella comes from the fact that she has relied on someone or something in her family her entire life. Initially she relied on her father and her husband and then Belle Reve and now that she has lost both she turns to another family member, which also shows that she has not "always depended on the kindness of strangers" (1602). Her losses show a streak of bad luck paired with unnecessary behavior that ended up burning a lot of bridges.

Blanche's attitude towards life reflects more on bad decisions and fear than delusionalness. Even if someone was delusional, it is unlikely they would sleep with someone half their age, especially if that happened to be a student, making the consequences far more severe. She also happened to be obsessive. Both her obsessiveness and her inappropriate behavior are reflections of her fear of aging, but aging was not necessarily a dominant force behind her actions. Blanche showed her obsessiveness by constantly taking bathes and repowdering her face. She was hypersensitive to dirty things. Her hypersensitivy was probably a means of washing away her past. She was clearly stuck in a rut as she spoke of Shep Huntleigh and her glorious life at Belle Reve. She was unable to accept the present and throughout the story she exists in a constant state of denial. Blanche also frequently acts out of fear. She has a fear of growing older, so she lives in the dark; she has a fear of being alone so she moves to New Orleans to be with Stella and instantly gravitates toward Mitch. Blanche is also afraid of her past coming back to haunt her, she left Laurel for a reason, even if it was that she was kicked out, she left it behind. When she got to New Orleans, she was not sleeping around as much as she had been, so she clearly fears the consequences of past actions. Blanche lives in a constant state of fear that she will not be accepted and taken care of.

Drama vs. Narrative

Susan Glaspell wrote a narrative and a play that tell the same story. One of the key differences between "Trifles", the drama and "A Jury of Her Peers", the narrative is the separation of action from language in the play. This basic difference is seen in the format of a play as oppposed to that of a narrative. A play is written with the character's name and then their dialogue with some action interspersed throughout; whereas a narrative has a character's dialogue in quotations and there is usually more of a focus on the action than the dialogue. As in all plays, the action is written in parentheses, but it allows for differentiation among the characters. It is easier to recognize a character's personality through their dialogue in a play, especially when it is acted out by a certain individual, than it is to recognize their personality in a narrative where all of the characters tend to blend together. The actions in a narrative are included throughout the story and don't cause the reader to stop to address them. The actions connect the dialogue and help the story to flow in narrative. The written layout of the story is a main difference between a narrative and a play, but just as significant is the difference in narration between the two.

Another key difference between narrative and drama is the narrator. In many plays there is a narrator to set the scene and establish the characters. In Glaspell's "Trifles" there was no narrator so the characters established themselves and spoke in first person. In "A Jury of Her Peers" there was a third person narrator who spoke for the characters part of the time and seemed to discreetly introduce and explain the action after it had occured. There was some suspense for the characters as to who killed John Wright in "A Jury of Her Peers", but the play was more suspenseful as the women's findings were pieced together before their very own eyes. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters were constantly in defense of Mrs. Wright in the narrative as the name suggests. They tried to back her as they found several pieces of evidence indicating that she was guilty of the crime. The women saw her as one of their own and pitied her for her situation. In the play there was more of a sense that Mrs. Wright and her bird were unimportant, so the women hid the bird. They did not want the men to know and have a solid reason to imprison her. The men made a mockery of the women and what they were doing while the women were the ones who actually technically solved the case by finding the bird. The women misled the men which explains why the play is called "Trifles". Although the story had different titles and was written in different forms, the titles essentially say the same thing, that the women knew what was going on and tried to protect her. Although there are many differences between narratives and plays, Glaspell's "Trifles" and "A Jury of Her Peers" were more similar than different as they told the same story in different forms.

Paralyzing Love

Eveline, the main character in James Joyce's Eveline experiences moments of paralysis followed by an epiphany similar to those experienced by the young boy in Joyce's Araby. Eveline is a nineteen year old girl who lives at home with her father, two young brothers, and sometimes her older brother. Since Eveline's mother died she has taken care of her younger siblings and the house while trying to avoid "her father's violence". (38) She lived a challenging life, but when she contemplated leaving she realized that she actually liked her lifestyle. The idea of leaving came about when Eveline met Frank. Frank was a sailor who wanted to take her to Buenos Aires to marry her and live happily in his house there. For Eveline Frank represented an escape. She said, "Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too." (40) Eveline idealized Frank as the antithesis of her father. The life she lived with her father made her unhappy and afraid while the life with Frank would allow her to be cared for and content.

She thought that Frank would be the perfect man to make her happy, so she decided to set sail with him. She made it to the docks with Frank where she saw lots of other soldiers and the ship. At this point, she experienced paralysis as "she felt her cheek pale and cold, and out of a maze of distress, she prayed to G-d to direct her, to show her what was her duty." (40) Eveline was unable to respond to Frank, she just stood there frozen in time and thought of the consequences of setting foot on the ship. She looked to religion for an answer. She was still caught up in indecision when "she felt him seize her hand". (41) He was leading her into a realm of uncertainty and she was trapped by her own inability to decide. Eveline, finally able to think, had a moment of epiphany. She knew that "he would drown her". (41) She had idealized what her life would be like with him, but it could have just as easily been as bad or worse than life with her father so she "clutched the iron [rails] in [a] frenzy." (41) She stayed on the dock and looked at him without compassion or guilt and watched him yell to her to follow him onto the boat. In her moment of epiphany, Eveline was terrified of the consequences of turning into her mother and leaving her family just as her mother had. She was paralyzed by the guilt of not fulfilling her obligation to her mother as well as the fear of how her father would treat her siblings. Eveline did not want to leave the place she grew up in as well as her family because the town had already lost many of its residents since she was a child and she did not want to leave the community that had provided so much for her. She felt an obligation to give the community what it had given her. Eveline's paralytic indecision led her to an epiphany where she chose family over impulsive love.

The young boy in Joyce's Araby was also paralyzed by a decision caused by love. He was in love with one of his friend's older sisters and he mustered up enough courage to ask her if she was going to the bazaar. She was not, but he decided to go anyway. The young boy got to the bazaar and went to the stall with the pottery that the girl loved. He wandered around the stall and pondered a purchase. Just as he was about to walk away from the stall without buying a vase for the girl, the lights went out and the boy's eyes filled with tears. His eyes burned because he took too long and the bazaar closed early. He was paralyzed while he was standing at the stall deciding whether or not to buy a vase for a girl. When the lights went out he had an epiphany as he had missed his chance and he had to go home empty-handed.

Just as Eveline went home without achieving her goal at the dock, the young boy went home without the vase for his crush. Both of them were paralyzed with their love of someone else and both idealized what would come of their relationships with the other had they taken the step after what had paralyzed them. For Eveline, it was a matter of leaving her family behind for the unknown and for the young boy it was not being confident enough or having enough money to buy something for the girl he thought he loved. They both felt sick by their indecisiveness. The young boy cried so much that his tears burned his eyes when the bazaar closed and Eveline had knots in her stomach that caused her to feel nauseous about going with Frank. Eveline and the young boy in Araby experienced similar bouts of love that caused them to be paralyzed and then reach an epiphany.

A Metamorphological Nightmare

In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the author frequently straddles the line between fantasy and reality. The main character Gregor starts the story off as a bug with human qualities. Gregor has a family, a job, an apartment, and concerns about being late for his job as opposed to those of a bug which would more likely include when it would find its next food. He is worried about being fired when his boss comes to the apartment because he has missed work, which is a real concern that most humans would have. He is worried that he will not be able to provide for his family and he has become more of a burden and a shame than a help as most humans would. Gregor is able to hear and understand the conversations his family has, although he cannot respond. He hides when his sister and mother come into his room more out of compassion than fear unlike most bugs. His life basically revolves around his family which is the case for most humans. Gregor has the thoughts of a human, but the lacks the physical characteristics making him seem real.

At the same time as Gregor has human-like thoughts he looks like a bug making the story appear more fantastical than realistic. He just happened to wake up one morning with a "domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments".(89) It seems quite unlikely that someone would go to bed a human and wake up a large insect. He scares away people because of his appearance and although humans have the capability to scare others with their appearance it does not usually occur without effort (ex. a clown). Gregor only has an appetite for moldy cheese and other things that would seem unpalatable to a human. It is challenging to imagine a human family hiding a large bug in a bedroom for months, most families would kill it and dispose of it right away because bugs are disgusting. The idea that the family ignored convention by aiding an odd creature in their home shows how fantastical the story is.

Because it is so improbable that a human would turn into a bug, the story is about the metaphorical transformation of a human. Gregor kept himself very distanced from life and the people around him that he almost acted like a bug. Bugs from a human perspective are dirty and disgusting, which is how Gregor was viewed. He felt for his family, but his family did not feel for him. He worried about their well being, but was unable to express this, so it was like he was non-existent with respect to them. Through his metamorphosis, Gregor was able to clearly view other people's perspectives of him. His new view of life from other's perceptions came shortly before death. Gregor died both before his transformation and after as he was of no use to his family after his metamorphosis and he literally physically died at the end.

An Angel Comes to Town...

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, religion is something of the imagination that may or may not help people and has nothing to prove its existence. In the beginning of the story, the angel arrived and Pelayo placed him in the chicken coop showing that the angel was no more important than the dirty animals that would later get eaten. He did not care enough about religion as symbolized by the angel so he did not treat the angel as if it were important. He chose to treat it as a burden to his everyday life. Even after his child's fever went away and he was quickly cured, Pelayo ignored the angel (religion) and decided that his child was better because of to the care he and his wife provided. In this case, religion provided no help to Pelayo. Pelayo and his wife went on to charge people five cents to view the crazy specimen of religion that they possessed. They did not care that he could have been divine, but used him to improve their financial well being and class. Although the church has religious foundations, for Marquez these religious foundations were something that was made up and used as a way to collect money and make a living for the people who worked for the church.

Pelayo showed his disinterest in religion when the angel arrived, but it took the town a little bit longer to decide that the imaginary angel was not as important as reality. The town's disinterest in the angel came when a human spider arrived. The spider became more relevant and real to the townspeople because she had been a human at one time, so it was possible that something as horrific as this could happen to them too. The people essentially left religion by no longer taking interest in the angel and moved toward the human. They moved from the imaginary or unproved (religion) to the real, even though it is hard to believe that a human could be turned in a spider for coming home late. Religion proved to be more of a burden at the end of the story than a help even as Pelayo and Elisenda made a lot of money by showing off the imagined creature that was representative of religion. As the angel left at the end of the story, "[Elisenda] kept on watching until it was no longer possible for her to see him, because then he was no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea". (455) She watched something that had been real for a short period of time (the angel) leave just as easily as it had come. Religion enters and exits people's lives, but it relies on faith and just as the angel left, there was no way to prove that he had been there in the first place. The whole idea of religion was just a dream. Religion or the presence of the angel had just been an "annoyance" and Elisenda was glad that it was gone. It went from being a burden to being a figment of her imagination.

Miss Emily is hiding.

Miss Emily's blog would epitomize her private, secretive attitude towards the world. She would utilize all of the privacy settings available to make sure that no one except her "friends" would be able to see. She would only be friends with Tobe, Colonel Sartoris, Homer Barron and her relatives from Alabama. There might be a few photos of her silhouette or shadow through the window that had been taken and tagged by other people, but no photos of Emily taken by herself or those close to her. Emily would have applications for photos (that others have posted), a calendar (to measure time slowly passing by without external human contact), groups (to join an art group because of the classes she taught), and the likeness application (to show how well she matched up with Homer). Miss Emily would probably not have conversations on her wall because that is too public, but she might have conversations via messaging.

Colonel Sartoris: Dear Miss Emily, I would like you to know that you are and will always be exempt from your taxes due to the great service provided to our town by your father. Regards, Colonel Sartoris
Emily: (20 years later) Dear Colonel Sartoris, I have been receiving inquiries regarding tax collection from the town and have sent them back to the post office immediately because you said that I am exempt from taxes. Please verify this information. Thank you. Regards, Emily

Emily: I am having a lovely time with my significant other, Homer. Everything is swell. I hope everything is wonderful in Alabama. Love, Emily
Grierson cousins: Emily we are coming to see you and meet Homer. The mayor of your town has contacted us and we just want to make sure everything is going well. We cannot wait to see you. Love, cousins
Emily: It is absolutely unnecessary to come see us. I am sure you will get to meet Homer in the near future anyways. PLEASE do not come to town. Love, Emily

Miss Emily is clearly a private person judging by the fact that she never leaves the house after her father's death. She also neglects to have visitors over other than Homer who ends up living with her and Tobe who is her servant and lives with her anyways. Because she is so reserved I doubt she would have a facebook page in the first place as facebook was intended to be a networking tool and she clearly does not want to connect to anyone that she does not have to. If she did happen to have a facebook page it would be completely private because she was such a hidden woman. She would not have very many friends to respect her need for privacy and prevent town gossip. The calendar feature of her facebook page would record the day she poisoned Homer and her slow aging process, leaving her daily reminders. It is hard to create a definite description of Miss Emily because she was so secretive and William Faulkner tries to retain that discreteness in his description of her. We know little about her because the story was told from the perspective of an outsider who clearly did not know her very well, but knew her primarily from stories told by others. The image painted of her is fairly vague and prevents her from having a more exciting or elaborate facebook page.