And Contrasting Expectations In Oliver Twist And A Doll's House

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Having and setting expectations can be helpful, but are they always a good thing? When others set expectations for someone else it can cause someone to do things that they might not normally do, both good and bad. These effects from expectations can be compared and contrasted in A Doll House, Oliver Twist, and The Joy Luck Club. They can be seen through Nora in A Doll House, through Nancy in Oliver Twist, through Waverly in The Joy Luck Club, and can overall be compared between all three stories. First, Nora is a prime example of how expectations can shape and form the actions of people. In A Doll House, Nora has to hide the things she likes because she doesn’t want Torvold to find them, such as the macaroons she sneaks every once in awhile. …show more content…
Waverly is pushed to do things that she doesn’t want to do, such as playing chess competitively. She actually liked to play chess, but her mother’s expectations for her got in the way of that and made her not want to play anymore. Because of the expectations put on her, it made her feel like she always needed to win and that her mother was just using her to make it seem like she was this perfect daughter. Waverly sometimes felt that her mother was living through her and by doing this it put tremendous expectations on her to do well. Because of this, Waverly decides to go against her mother’s wishes and decide for herself what to do. This can be seen as both good and bad. On one hand, Waverly was making decisions for herself, but on the other hand, these decisions might not have been the best for her own interests. This also affected her future and made her into a snobbier version of herself. She seemed to hold herself to a higher standard, which may have been caused by her mother doing the same when she was younger. Because of this, she comes off strong and may seem a little self-centered at times. Such as when she says that the ad made for her business was not professional or good enough. This shows that the expectations she put on herself as she got older also impacted the way she saw things. These higher expectations impacted her …show more content…
Both Nora and Nancy face the expectations of relationships. Nancy’s situation can be seen as worse because of what Sikes puts her through. At the same time, Nora’s situation can also be seen as bad because she was deprived of actually doing what she wanted to do. In both cases, the expectations that are set for them make it so that they can’t live fully. In Waverly’s case it was expectations put on her by her mother and by the Chinese culture. Her situation was also similar because it still impacted her relationships in the future, especially when she wanted her mother’s approval of Rich. This shows that she still wanted to live up to her mother’s expectations even though she had went against them earlier in life. So, although each character had different expectations, they each had an impact on their relationships that they formed with others. Another thing that was similar between all of them was that the character being impacted was female. This shows that women have a lot of expectations of who they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to do, when that might not be what is best for them. In both Nora and Nancy’s case, men can be the ones to blame for the constrictions that were set. But, in all three of them, society also plays an important role. In conclusion, the effects from expectations can be seen in A Doll House, Oliver Twist, and The Joy Luck Club. They

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