Abstract The paper reviews a major work of Rodoreda's. It gives the background to the author, her times, and the setting of the book -- the Spanish Civil War and Franco's rise to power, (although the work was not published until after the war). The paper reviews the form of the picaresque novel and explains why the struggle of Cecilia, the protagonist, meets the necessary criteria in order to be classified as a picaresque novel. The writer focuses on the author's flower imagery and her use of it to symbolize Cecilia's struggle to relate to men. The writer concludes that Cecilia's journey has left her still struggling to find her place in the world.
From the Paper "Essentially, Camellia Street is a picaresque novel. This form originated in 16th century Spain and became well known in Cervantes' Don Quixote and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The subject of a picaresque novel is usually a "rogue" ("picaro" is Spanish for "rogue") that wanders from adventure to adventure without seemingly any roots or home. Certainly Cecilia fits this description. Abandoned as a baby, she doesn't even know her last name or her parentage. She grows up to become a prostitute and a kept woman, subject to the affections and/or brutality of man after man.
"The protagonist in a picaresque novel must live by his/her wits and usually shows little or no alteration of character throughout the long succession of escapades. Though the book does seem to end with some hope, as Cecilia states "I looked around and it seemed like the ceiling was higher," there is no major transformation in her character. Her emotions and matter-of-fact tone remain steady.
"Finally, this form explores the illusions and realities in life. Many critics of Rodoreda's work have pointed out that her characters and settings are usually somewhere in between the bleakly realistic and the imaginary. As Rosenthal points out, in Camellia Street, Cecilia is often victim to her own illusions, developing jealousies and cruel intentions that "slowly build into scenes of hallucinatory intensity."
Abstract The following paper discusses one of the many historical attractions in Wilmington, the famous Airlie Gardens. Designed at the beginning of the 1900?s, it encompasses some sixty-seven acres of post-Victorian European style gardens, including ten acres of freshwater lakes. This paper also focuses on the life and works of Minnie Evans, who worked as a gatekeeper in the Airlie Gardens, from 1948 to 1974, painting the scenery in the gardens whenever she had a break. This paper discusses the way in which her drawings of the Airlie Gardens helped her start her career as a well-acclaimed artist.
From the Paper ?A descendent of slaves from Trinidad, Minnie was born in a log cabin in Long Creek, North Carolina on December 1, 1892. She and her mother moved to Wilmington in 1893, and there Minnie was raised by her grandmother. She completed the fifth grade, and then went to work as a sounder, selling oysters and clams door-to-door. Minnie always saw a world invisible to everyone else and throughout her life, even her childhood, her night dreams were filled with visions, and her days filled with sights and voices only she experienced.?
Abstract This paper begins by describing the strong influence white supremacist groups used to have in the United States, while questioning whether this influence still exists. In the years following the defeat of the Confederacy by the Union, resistance to Reconstruction and changes in the status of former African slaves was to emerge throughout the American South. Supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of the White Camellia were formed in part by southern leaders in the 1860s to destroy the voting power of newly freed slaves and to do damage to carpetbag misrule. According to the paper, such organizations are restructuring themselves into survivalist groups that are calling for increased cultural separatism. The author further contends that such groups do exist and do exert an influence over American political and social systems, but their actual presence and influence in American life is most probably less than one might suspect.
From the Paper "It was, however, the formal resistance to the policies of Reconstruction in the form of the Klan that most troubled race relations in the South during an long after Reconstruction. Martin and Roberts (1989, pp. 501 -502) quote a historian of the Klan who asserted that it "whipped, shot, hanged, robbed, raped and otherwise outraged Negroes and Republicans across the South in the name of preserving white civilization." A major goal of the Klan was to intimidate Republican voters and electoral candidates (including those Blacks who were affiliated with the Party) and to restore Democrats to office."
Abstract Poetry analysis of selected works of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath focusing on recurring themes of suicide and rebirth. Specifically, the paper analyzes the loss of self-worth experienced by aging women, fears related to predetermined gender roles and how these influences and expectations hinder spiritual connectedness.
From the Paper "Women writers often use suicide as a vehicle of escape for female characters who find themselves trapped within a restrictive and domineering masculine centered society. Tragically, many of these same writers materialize their fascination with freedom through suicide into the reality of their own lives. Although the confessional poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton delivers successive examples of this terrifying fascination, the horrific reality of their repetitive attempts to take their own lives taints the eloquence of this body of work. Loss of societal worth and independence for aging women, reservations with predetermined domestic expectations and, most significantly, repetitive attempts at identification with the spiritual and natural world are all relevant themes in Plath and Sexton's poetry. Clearly, both authors were plagued with a variety of fears born in the conflicting expectations of a male dominated society."
