In the story “Stolen Party” written by Liliana Heker, a girl’s dreams are shattered by the bitter reality of her destiny. Rosaura spends most of her time trying to convince her mother, as well as everyone at the birthday party, that being an educated girl makes her an equal to everyone at the party. She feels great determination to become a part of her friend Luciana’s lifestyle even though it would be rebelling against her mother’s wishes. Rosaura almost believes she has accomplished this feat until she is harshly brought back to reality and faced with her position in life once again. It will be an impossible struggle to overcome the class status that she was born into with the many factors against her.
When Rosaura’s mother can tell her starry-eyed daughter who is full of hope and innocence that, “The problem with you, young lady, is that you like to fart higher than your ass” (Heker 1133), it creates a bitterness between them and damages the idea of Rosaura improving herself. The mother does not want Rosaura to go “the rich people’s party,” perhaps due to fear that her daughter might experience the cold shoulder from the upper class, or perhaps out of fear that Rosaura might truly make it and leave the mother behind.
The fact that this mother could have this incredibly mature conversation with her daughter “barely even nine,” and that Rosaura could say to her mother “rich people go to heaven too,” indicates the maturity of the daughter as well as her intelligence level that was already higher than her mother’s. Rosaura proceeds to tell her mother what a friend is. However despite her greatest efforts to make her mother understand, her mother continues to keep throwing negative thoughts and opinions at her.
The next hindrance Rosaura experiences is at the party. She is confronted by a “high class” young girl who is the cousin of her friend Luciana. After numerous questions about who Rosaura was, the young girl tells her “you are not a friend of Luciana because I’m her cousin and I know all her friends” (1135). Rosaura maintained her ground through the slew of questions thrown at to her. Not until the question of how was she Luciana’s friend came up did Rosaura start to become defeated by her social class. Rosaura recited the line “my mother’s an employee,” a face-saving but still revealing statement that had been instilled in her head (1135).
Emotional Break-down in Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
Emotional Break-down in Trifles
Trifles is an interesting story about the emotional break-down of a country woman. It is obvious by certain descriptions within the text that she did have an emotional trauma. However, it is never made clear if she killed her husband or did he commit suicide. The emotional trauma can be scene in the beginning of the story by her attitude towards Mr. Hale. Ms. Wright is in a state of shock her constant rocking; pleating of her skirt; her “queer” look and her dead pan response to how Mr. Wright died “He died of a rope around his neck”; all indicate a high level of emotional stress in a situation. She is not responding to anything. Also, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters examine her quilting. The sewing is very nice and even and then suddenly it becomes a wild disaray of stiches. These actions and inactions truly indicate an unbalanced state of mental being, however, is it enough to charge a woman with murder.
What further indicates the difficulty in deciding if Mrs. Wright killed Mr. Wright is the canary. Mrs. Wright shows that she loves the canary by trying to bury it in the pretty sewing box. This is not the action of someone who killed the canary. Mrs. Wright is also described as being like a bird. The reader can envision her as someone petite or slight. She is described as being sweet, pretty, timid and fluttery. It would take a lot for someone of this description to commit murder. On the other hand, Mr. Wright is described as someone who is difficult to live with. He is described by Mrs. Hale as having killed the bird like qualities in his wife. He appears to be an overbearing, unhappy person.
I propose that it is Mr. Wright who kills the canary. He is taking something away from his wife trying to keep control over her. Also the cage is severely damaged. Mrs. Wright is not described as someone with a lot of strength. Following that vein of thought I also propose that Mr. Wright went crazy. He killed the bird and hung himself. It would take a lot of strength to hang a large man and Mr. Wright was envisoned to be. Also the sheriff and county attorney are baffled by the way the rope was strung up, it was rigged up strangely.