D. H. Lawrence

“The rocking horse winner” and “Odour of Chrysanthemums” are both short stories of D. H . Lawrence. These writings are autobiographical making them more interesting and enjoyable to read. We can find remarkable elements which make the stories more realistic and easy to enhance the reader, because those elements are part of the real life. Elements such as disdain, false love, money, unhappiness are present in Lawrence’s works, but what makes more fascinating these short stories are the female characters.

In “The rocking horse winner” we can see a mother who does not love her children and feels extremely unlucky because of her husband and marriage. Unfortunately her children noticed that. This mother is more concerned about money and her unlucky life than her own family. Moreover, she seems very good and lovely with her children to external people. One of her children realizes that the only way to be lucky (or probably be loved) is riding his horse. However, the little boy become mad hearing in his mind an strange voice which reveals him the winning horse of the competition. In this way her son tries to make his mother happy, giving her the money, but at the end he died because of his madness, and it was there when the mother started to feel a little bit worried or possibly “love” for her son.

Similarly in the “Odour of Chrysanthemums”, the female character called Elizabeth is a woman who has to face an unhappy marriage and also deals with her husband’s drunkenness. In general this woman is absolutely cold and dissatisfied because of his poor live style. Thus, she does not show respect to her husband and their relationship little by little is broken.

In conclusion, D. H Lawrence portrays essentially issues or current events that are closely related to the human nature. The writer explores through his characters what human beings are, how people behave, act and feel in this life.

Virginia Woolf “A Room of One’s Own”

“A room of one’s own” is an extended essay where Virginia Woolf presents and discusses large questions related to women’s history. What the writer ponders is that “a woman must have money and a room of her own”. According to that, Virginia appeals both real (or room) and a metaphorical space. Nevertheless, what we call “metaphorical space” is the historical perspective she refers to and criticizes. In her essay, Virginia takes into consideration the historical perspective, reflecting that women have never been considered as important as men to write literature, and not only just fiction, poetry also. To Virginia the question is why there have been few high-quality woman writers. Her answer is because historically female gender has been discriminated by chauvinist society, limiting women’s lives in all senses. Indeed Woolf also addresses that one of the problem is education, because men were well educated and women were not, pointing out implicitly how inferior for that society women were in the XIX Century.


Concluding with my reflection, I can argue that when Virginia Woolf states “a woman should have money”, she is claiming that the process of writing involves on the one hand, most part of the day , and on the second hand, time to think to create literature but without interruptions. In fact, it is a way of living and if a woman works to have incomes, then, her art will be affected or interrupted. In other words, Virginia Woolf also infers the education of women needed more money.

















References:

http://www.enotes.com/room-ones

Oliver Twist A Film Directed by Roman Polanski

Oliver Twist is a film based on Charles Dickens’s story. It is the dramatic story of a poor and orphan English boy who by his conditions is sent to an educative institution. Unfortunately, the child, who is nine years olds, is not well treated there. Refusing to live under a place without love and care, he moves on to live on streets. The movie portrays the life of this little and unlike child who is confronted to live under the most miserable conditions that a human being can face. In fact, one of the main aspect of this film is how well depicts the reality that million children used to lead but in poor and insanity conditions in a society that promoted happiness and progress for everyone.

Moreover, two remarkable aspects of Roman Polanski film are how well harshness and isolation are illustrated. In that time, London city was crowed of people who were trying to look more opportunities to survive, but becoming many of them, including children, in objects to obtain money or others simply dying because of illness or starvation. To conclude, Oliver Twist is an excellent movie to appreciate the complexity and sad situations that modern time brought to humanity, but especially innocent people or victims such as Oliver Twist story.

The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens

The short story written by Charles Dickens is clearly an analogy of Modernity. To me, it is a demonstration of how the progress has become a significant part of men’s life, but making of him a piece of this industrialized and sadness world. What Dickens wanted to ilustrate us is the reality of those times in where he was living in. The main characters of the story illustrated the impact of living in a society who was loosing control because of the desire to be modern. In fact, I would say that they were just victims of this “modernity” or progress, which the only things it brought to men and women was disillusion , sadness, depression , darkness and hopeless to their lives.

On the other hand, in terms of education, this short story could be a really good tool to use it in the classroom. We can teach, show and demonstrate our students the real impact that progress has brought to our lives. Indeed, there are many elements which are still present and teachers can work on them allowing learners to think critically, making a good use of literature into our profession.