Comparative essay of 'Prue' and 'My heart is broken'

     Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be nominated as Vice President of the United States, said "We've chosen the path to equality, don't let them turn us around." Geraldine Ferraro was right. Women certainly have ‘chosen the path to equality’ by engaging in ‘Waves of Feminism’ from 19^th century to today. One of branches of Feminism movement is Feminism theory, which is the extension of Feminism into theoretical or philosophical discourse to comprehend the nature of gender equality. ‘My heart is broken’ and ‘Prue’ are two short stories that exemplify Feminism theory by incorporating Feminism to convey the social status of women. However, while the two stories both suggest the true gender equality is yet to go, they focus on different aspects of women’s rights.

‘My heart is broken’ shares common aspects with ‘The Second Wave of Feminism’ in that it addresses social issues relevant to women’s rights. The story specifically emphasizes sexual abuse by portraying the rape incident of the protagonist Jeannie that is not dealt with properly. For instance, instead of seeking for an assailant of the rape incident to file a lawsuit and to resolve the situation, most characters in the story except Vern were busy trying to ascribe the cause of the event to the victim herself. Mrs. Thomson, who is introduced as Jeannie’s ‘best friend’, does not empathize with the protagonist’s situation but rather snaps at her by saying “I said nothing makes trouble faster in a place like this than a grown woman behaving like a little girl.” It is important to note that the fictitious world of ‘My heart is broken’ is a projection of the real society itself. Both fictitious and real societies perceive the rape issue with a merciless cold gaze filled with bias and devoid of empathy towards victims. However, while Jeannie passively accepts her fate that she has to live forever haunted by the traumatic event, women living in a real world create ‘The Second Wave of Feminism’ to reform a society, so that there would no longer be ‘Jeannie’ with broken heart.

‘Prue’ is different to ‘My heart is broken,’ since it is more intimately related to ‘The Third Wave of Feminism.’ The third wave challenges definitions of femininity from the second wave, which over-emphasized the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. ‘Prue’ shares several commonalities with ‘The Third Wave of Feminism,’ since the story portrays how women who are under upper-middle-class are treated within a community. To recapitulate several aspects of the protagonist Prue, she is a lower class woman with very passive personality. Prue’s passiveness is emphasized by her relationship with Gordon. For instance, Gordon states “I think I’m in love with this person” but later says “ But I do think I want to marry you, in a few years time.” In other words, he directly states that he does not regard Prue as top priority, which is an insolent attitude. However, Prue showed no sign of hurt feelings and merely replied Gordon’s arrogant statement with “Well, I guess nobody can know what happens in a few years of time.” Through the relationship between Gordon and the protagonist, readers can sense that while the protagonist of the story is clearly Prue, she never plays major role throughout the story. Instead, she merely perceives ongoing events like a powerless bystander incapable of fostering any changes to her own situation nor others’ perception towards her. These aspects of Prue transcend the fictitious world and represent the very reality of women under upper-middle-class in a real society. Instead of discussing social issues relevant to women’s rights, Alice Munro attempted to reveal the status of lower-class women realistically and called attention to the necessity of “The Third Wave of Feminism” to guarantee these women equal rights.

Overall, the two stories evidently showed different unique aspects that fit in separate waves of Feminist movement. ‘My heart is broken’ seems to have its aim at alerting the society the importance of reform of social systems and perception to protect women’s rights. On the other hand, ‘Prue’ seems to be more focused on portraying the life of women situated in class that had not been in the center of attention. However, readers should not falsely conclude that the two stories have different ultimate goals. They should always remind that the main purpose of the Feminist movement, regardless of time periods, is to ensure women equal rights and that incorporation of Feminism into literature is one part of such effort. 

Anton Chekhov "The Student" Reading Journal

For those who are eager to unveil and accept profound philosophy implied within literature, ‘Student’ is truly a masterpiece. What is attractive about Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Student’ is that it has generated countless literary controversies despite its little quantity of the story. This fact shows that Anton Chekhov’s ‘Student’ managed to express various profound philosophy and literary technique that are worth discussing in a very concise manner, proving that it is indeed a perfect short story.     

However, for readers who have no knowledge in Anton Chekhov’s styles or in realism, the short story ‘Student’ may appear rather dull and meaningless. In fact, when I first read ‘The Student’, I thought the main purpose of the story was to cause ennui, just like Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’. Nevertheless, I soon found out that I was wrong. In fact, I could gradually sense that the story is more complex than I originally thought after repeatedly reading it. I began to slowly sense that there could be an interesting twist in the protagonist’s seemingly optimistic and in-depth perception of the world. Furthermore, tears that Vasilisa shed and distorted face expression of Lukerya after Ivan told them the story about the Twelve Gospels seemed to suggest certain link between the two widows and Peter that Ivan failed to notice correctly. Overall, my perception towards ‘The Student’ is that it is the story that gradually transforms into an intriguing riddle as readers delve deeper into it.

Regardless of the fact that ‘The Student’ is a short story, it has been surrounded by various literary controversies, since the work itself is like a ‘riddle’. One of the notable aspects that are still currently under debate is the overall tone of the story. While there have been numerous controversies over whether the story is pessimistic or optimistic, I believe that ‘The Student’ is a pessimistic story. In fact, the story completely turns into a pessimistic story when epiphany of Ivan is interpreted as a hasty, incorrect realization. For instance, how can readers be sure that Vasilisa shed her tears because “her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter’s soul”? What if she showed such behavior as an expression of guilt or sadness evoked by unpleasant memory of the past? For example, Vasilisa may have cried because Peter reminded her of watching her daughter being beaten by her husband. If she really did, Ivan would be a careless student who brought pain hidden deep inside other’s heart to the surface without realizing himself that he just made innocent people fall into agony. Then, Ivan’s epiphany would be groundless, since his realization is based on his misconception. Therefore, Ivan becomes a protagonist who made a hasty conclusion about perception towards the world while not realizing that he is unable to spot hidden truths behind what he sees. In this context, the story becomes pessimistic by portraying the protagonist who deluded himself.

Based on the interpretation that ‘The Student’ is a pessimistic story, Anton Chekhov may have warned readers to be humble in the course of learning. It is important to note that Ivan’s age is only 22, the age too young for one to attain correct perceptions towards the world. However, regardless of his young age and lack of life experience, Ivan believes himself that he attained important verity of the world by simply talking to the two widows, a set of mind that can be conceived as arrogant. Incapable of realizing veiled truth of the world due to incorrect perception he hastily established, Ivan may not be able to further improve. In other words, Anton Chekhov may have attempted to deliver the message “do not live like Ivan.”

Overall, ‘The Student’ was a great surprise for me, since it broke my prejudice that the story has to be long if it aims to generate diverse literary controversies and contain profound philosophy. In fact, though it took me less than 30 minutes to read ‘The Student’, I found out that deep, scholarly approach to “The Student” exceeds my academic ability. I would like to give applaud to Anton Chekhov for his supreme talents in writing such a concise yet profound story.