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Modern American Literature: Rise of Realism

Choose one of the stories to apply feminist criticism to the reading. Identify the protagonist and antagonist and describe their relationship as it relates to the theme. How does the relationship to the foil, if there is one, reflect the theme? Identify whether the protagonist is round or flat, dynamic or static. Support your response with examples from the text. In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” the theme is that stereotypes limit people. The husband is the stereotype because he thinks of Jane as a weak, stay at home house wife. Societies beliefs of this slowly crazys Jane. The feminist criticism is that the husband of Jane was treating her like a lower class, like she had less value to the world. The protagonist is Jane because the story was about her and she was also telling the story about herself. The antagonist was her husband because he treated her as an unimportant person and ignored her. The fact that they were married is the relationship between the two of them is related to the stories theme. The protagonist is round and dynamic. In the story you see her go from normal to sad to going crazy.
 * Chopin’s “Story of and Hour” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”**

Select an example of imagery that creates the mood of the story? How does the mood of the setting reflect the character’s motivations driven by their id, ego, and superego?
 * Crane’s “Mystery of Heroism”**

In the story “Mystery of Heroism” it is about a man who starts by wanting to show off to his fellow soljers but then sees this dear more as a difficult task. The mood created through out this story is crazy and suspensfull. The four sences the story put very much detail in were sight, smell, sound, and feel. The biggest point in the story for sight had to have been the dying man under the horse and the little meadows. Sound was the battery on the hill and a welcomeing roar from his friends.for smell is an oder of a conflagration and for feel it was “he was aware of some deep wheel rutes and hoof prints in the sod around his feet.” His ID was to get water to inpress his friends. His ego was when he gave the dying man water. But his super ego was just the fact to help the dying man.

How does the author indirectly characterize the protagonist through the use of dialect? What does this tell us about the character? How are they influenced by their id, ego, or superego?
 * Wharton’s “April Showers” and Twain’s “The Invalid’s Story”**

In the story “April Showers” the main character says “o father” which makes me think she is a bit more upper class than a normal person. Her Id is that she wanted to become a writer but her parents didn’t want that for her. Her superego was that she had to take keer of her family. And her ego was to still become a writer but give money to her family to take keer of them when she wrote stories. In the story “The Invalid’s Story” the narrorater says “I reckon we’ve got the commodore this time”. This makes me think he is of the middle class because he says “I reckon”. His id was to get rid of the body but his superego was to just deal with the dreadful smell that he thought was the dead body. Instead he went outside of the train to get away from the smell.