Zelah Clarke

In the film The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman, two women, Martha and Karen, run an all girls boarding school. One of the girls, Mary Tilford, becomes upset when she is punished for disobeying the rules and decides that she does not want to return to school. She recalls one of her classmates, Rosalie, telling her that Martha’s Aunt, Lily Mortar, had said that Martha’s actions towards Karen were “unnatural”. To avoid returning to school, Mary uses this information and forms a lie that she tells her grandmother, Ms. Tilford. She states that the two headmistresses are having an affair and her grandmother chooses to believe her. This lie slanders Karen and Martha's reputations and results in the loss of the school because all of the girls are taken home. While there is no doubt that the fate of Karen and Martha is determined by multiple characters, Ms. Tilford deserves the greatest amount of blame because she gives immediate credibility to Mary’s comments, she spreads the rumor that ruins their reputation by informing the parents of the children that they are having an affair, and she is willing to take the matter to court if they accuse her of slander. People easily deem Mary the most culpable because she constructs the lie that ultimately destroys the lives of Karen and Martha. However, she often makes up excuses in order to evade trouble. One day she shows up to class when it is nearly over and explains that she was merely picking flowers for Mrs. Mortar, who fails to…

Bleak House is a story about Esther Summerson who lives with her aunt and is the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon. She spends the early years of her life at Ms. Barbary, her aunt’s house. After Ms. Barbary’s death she goes to live at Greenleaf at Ms. Donny’s with the help of her guardian Mr. Jarndyce. She spends six years at Greenleaf. After six years she goes to live at her guardian’s house accompanied with two other wards Miss Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. She…

The gothic novel, Jane Eyre, focuses on the life of a young, orphaned girl, who learns to balance her precarious station in 19th century England- a society whose culture is dictated by rigid social castes and protocols. She grows up in household of her Aunt, Mrs Reed, after the death of her parents, where she experiences neglect and estrangement until she moves to a charity school at the age of ten. The novel briefly narrates the story of her cousins, Georgiana and Eliza Reed, through brief…

The Film ‘A Little Princess’ directed by Alfonso Cuaron in 1995 and tells a story of a young girl from India, who is sent to stay at a boarding school while her father goes to fight in war, as her mother is dead. On the other hand, the novel ‘The secret Garden’ was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1911 and tells a story of a spoilt ten year old girl who has to move from India to her uncle's house in England after her parents had died from a disease. Both film and novel displays the theme…

The Flower Girl’s Great Transformation “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” In George Bernard Shaw’s fictional play, Pygmalion, Liza Doolittle also known as The Flower Girl, is the protagonist and is under an experiment for six months. Liza lives with two old gentlemen, Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering. She later discovers her new identity, a better lifestyle where there is education, etiquettes, social class, and…

“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart,” -Anne Frank. That’s tough to swallow, especially considering Anne was a Jew during the Holocaust. Anne and her family didn’t go to a camp like most Jews. They went into hiding and had to live with another family for two years. Two families and one stranger in an attic above a business; things will definitely not always go well. There will obviously be differences between some of them. Especially Anne Frank, and her…

Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson,” illustrates the unequal distribution of wealth in America which causes the protagonist, Sylvia, to lose her innocence and reevaluate the social class spectrum she lives in. Miss Moore, who is the only person with a college degree in the area, wants to teach Sylvia and the other children a life-changing lesson in an outing to a toy store. From the group of children, Sylvia shows she is a naïve and stubborn child who does not value anyone’s opinion.…

When Jane Eyre was first published by Charlotte Brontë in Victorian England, it was viewed as revolutionary. In the modern era, despite rapid changes in the role of women in both the home and workplace, the novel is still regarded as one of the greatest works of feminist literature worldwide. Brontë expertly presents power struggles between her narrator, Jane, and men, alongside conflicts with society as a whole in order to produce an overall theme of female empowerment. Within this passage…

Adeline has been whipped,thoroughly beaten, and has had a torturous life she never was welcomed by the family and had a depressing life. The memoir Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah is a story about a girl with a depressing life. Adeline was always depressed about being last on everything. Victor once said “It’s so unfair why doesn’t she ever get to go anywhere with us. Niang screamed That’s just the way it is! “( Yen Mah 156)She doesn’t get to go even with her own family. They treat her as…

In Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre, morality is tied to Jane’s understanding of religion and spirituality. Morality is presented to Jane through Christianity and Jane’s spirituality. Throughout the novel, characters such as Brocklehurst and St John present Jane with their interpretations of Christian moral guidelines: Brocklehurst presents the rejection of physical nourishment, while St John presents ideals such as the rejection of emotional fulfillment in order to carry out God’s will on Earth.…