Christmas storms and sunshine

This story that I’m going to be writing about in this essay is the story of “Christmas storms and sunshine” by Elizabeth gaskell. Im going to be mentioning some things before i begin about Elizabeth Gaskell’s life. She was born on September 29th in 1810. She was born in London and lived in the Victorian period, as well as the setting of the story. Elizabeth Gaskell was the daughter of a unitarian minister and her husband was one as well. The death of her only child was what inspired her to write her first novel called ‘Mary Barton’. Elizabeth died on December of 1865, and left her longest work called ‘Wives and Daughters’ incomplete. Now to continue with this essay im gonna relate the values of citizenship and commitment to the story, but before beginning with this, it is important for the meaning of these values to be left clear. Citizenship is the position or status of being a citizen of a particular country. It is also carrying out the duties and responsibilities of a member of a particular society. While commitment is a willingness to give your time and energy to something that you believe in, might be a promise, or firm decision to do something. 

I could only see the value of commitment at the beginning of the story by the men of the family but throughout the story went on we could point out the value of citizenship in the story. 

This story talks about two families called the Hodgsons and the Jenkins. The men of these two families work and fight for different positions on a newspaper. Mr hodgson works for ‘The Examiner’ while Mr. Jenkins works for ‘The Flying Post’. They both are the compositors of 2 local important english newspapers and they work for them. Their career is what mostly tears them apart and does not let them live in peace between each other nor even be around each other from the hatred they feel. These two men are committed to their work and they both work really hard to be the best English Newspaper in their country. They are very commited to their work as we can see since their work is what somehow makes them enemies for fighting to be on the best newspaper position. Mrs. Jenkins owns a cat and Mrs Hodgsons has a son. Mrs.Jenkins envys in a way how Mary has a son she takes care of and everything while she doesn’t have any children, just a cat.

Mary gets furious and bothered when mrs jenkins cat enters her house and gets on the dining table and starts eating me jenkins food. This act led to even more problems between the conflicts of these two families. She obviously couldn’t do anything to her cat but she does complain to mrs jenkins about what her cat did. Now the two parts where i could point out citizenship was when mrs hodgsons son got very very ill that he was at the point between life and death. We could see citizenship when mrs hodgsons went to her neighbour, the jenkins, house and asked for advice and help on what to do to help her son get better. Mrs jenkins decided to help her theoughout her harsh time. Mrs hodgsons was very grateful to receveive her enemies help whom is not that much of an enemy anymore. At the end of the story we could see the value of citizenship since despite the two families conflicts and disagreements, they found a way to handle each other as citizens and leave behind all of their worries and all of their arguments.

The Lady of Shallot

“The Lady of Shallot” is a very interesting story where we can relate the values of patience and caring to the story itself. Before getting to move on with the essay, it is important to know the definition of the two values mentioned before. Patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. It is the ability to endure difficult circumstances and stay calm. While the word caring is when you feel or show concern or kindness towards other people, usually caring people think about others and give them emotional support as well. Now these two values i can clearly see in the Lady of Shallot, since she is trapped or imprisoned near Camelot, in the Island of Shallot. She has to work on weaving a magical web and can not look directly at Camelot, or she will be cursed. She hears voices in her ear at times that tell her that she will be cursed if she looks directly at the outside world. She could only see by the reflection and shadows on the mirror in front of her. A woman that has to go through all of that by herself is the definition of patience. She takes her time weaving that magical web and doesn’t look directly into Camelot for a while. One day, the Lady of Shallot was tired of seeing the shadows through the mirror that she wanted to experience something real, something in real life, and that was when she commited the huge mistake of looking into Camelot because of her curiosity. She risked getting cursed to look at a handsome man named sir Lancelot whom she saw pass by through the reflections on the mirror she had in front of her that gave her the ability to see from outside her tower. Her patience was lost at that moment. She describes sir Lancelot as a star in a galaxy. He catches her eye and heart as she was weaving the magic web and as he rides the banks of the river while singing. I believe she was not caring on herself when she did that because she already knew what was to come, and the consequences which is the curse that whispered in her ear. She may not have known what the curse would be but it still brings danger. She ran out and got into a boat to run away. She saw she was cursed when the web flew outside her window, but as mentioned before, she didn’t care about it nor the huge and bad stormy weather that the island had and went on her way. She froze to death and was found there laying on the boat and that was when people gathered around wondering who that woman was and at that moment sir lancelot showed care, he showed that he cared about the woman that was in front of him, and that was when he got closer to take a better look and held her and recognised how beautiful and pretty her face was.