2005—Essay #3—Character with Outward Conformity and Inward Questioning
Sample Essays
(courtesy of Danny Lawrence)
Sample C
In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna Pontellier conforms outwardly, and questions inwardly. She is a wife with three children who begins to question the subservient nature of women. Her role as a wife and mother conflicts with her independent spirit as Chopin uses symbolism to emphasize Edna’s and all women’s need to be free.
The title, The Awakening, suggests Edna’s awakening to her sexuality and her life. Her playing in the ocean is symbolic of vastness and freedom. A bird in a cage symbolises Edna trapped in her marriage. A bird should be able to be free and fly away, however if it is caged it can not. If a bird’s wings are broken it can only try helpless or fall in to the vastness of the sea. If the bird is strong, or if Edna can over come the oppression of her society, she can fly away. Edna begins to live an independent life, but the seas are strong and can carry a person far out to sea away from land. Edna is either given up in the end realizing that the wide world is not ready for her, or she is setting her self free. She removes her clothes and is born again in the sea as she drifts away.
Edna symbolizes a bird in the vast ocean of society. She was not yet strong enough to make it in her oppressive society, but in the end she is free.
Sample F
In Of Mice and Men, George struggles with outward conformity versus inward questioning.
Throughout the novel, George takes care of his friend Lenny. He defend Lenny against Curly in nearly every aspect. However, once Lenny accidentally murders Curly’s wife George is forced to take action.
George find Lenny and shoots him. He is forced to conform to Curly’s demands. George struggled with his decision to murder his friend. He had to choose between letting Lenny be tortured by Curly or killing Lenny himself. Both options led to conformity with his life as a worker on a ranch and conformity with his life without Lenny.
Lenny was mentally impaired. The society at the time felt that his life was not valuable. George, however, cherished Lenny’s friendship. In the end, George was forced to give into society’s demands, society’s philosophy of survival of the fittest, and murder his friend in order to have him avoid a painful death.
After Lenny’s death, George had to continue working and living with the rule of survival of the fittest. Against George’s best efforts he eventually had to conform to the society he lived in even though he struggled inwardly.
Sample L
The individual’s conflict with society is a central theme to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. While the theocracy of the puritanical society demands righteousness and propriety, various characters, however, encounter great conflict over the question of conformity. The character of Arthur Dimmesdale, viewed as conforming initially by society, is forced to grapple with the question of his own sin inwardly. Dimmesdale’s tension between outward conformity and inward questioning lend to the novel’s message that although one may not appear guiltless, all of humanity must confront its inevitable sin or be driven insane by them.
In the beginning scaffold scene, Dimmesdale fails to start out as a sinner. He plays the role of a revered community member, and the focus is truly on Hester’s shame. However, while the community’s piercing glances of blame are directed towards Hester, Dimmesdale is obviously struggling with his own shame in the sin. The central inward conflict of Dimmesdale is this: although he is hailed as the paragon of righteousness and faith since he is a minister, admission of sin would shatter the dogmatic puritan views of God and Dimmesdale if the town should suspect that their mouthpiece from God has sinned. Initially, Arthur chooses to conform. Although he is perfectly aware of his inner shame, he openly asks the true sinner to identify himself within the crowd. He therefore is unwilling to accept the community’s scorn and blame where blame is due.
Inside, though, Dimmesdale writhes with pain over his dilemma. Since he cannot bottle up his shame any longer, Dimmesdale decides upon self-mutilation as an external manifestation of his inner tumult. However, the ‘A’ upon his chest remains hidden from the public, and Dimmesdale continues to conform within society to his role as religious exemplar. When Chillingworth discovers the marking, though, Hawthorne establishes that inner guilt cannot remain secret, and shame cannot be bottled up inside without societal cognizance.
Under the cover of both night and the forest, though, Dimmesdale is able to accept his label as sinner. When Hester and Pearl encounter Dimmesdale upon the scaffold at night, Dimmesdale is demonstrated lamenting his own morality, yet accepting his position as moral outcast. Dimmesdale has chosen to ostracize himself from the community through the symbol of the scaffold, but only during the night since he is still unwilling to announce his guilt. The scaffold represents non conformity and sin, so it is significant that this night meeting of the trio should occur at this setting. The meteor that appears as an ‘A’ across the sky further foreshadows Dimmesdale’s public announcement of his own sin. The scene closes with the three creating an ‘electric chain.’ This image signifies that strength comes from unity and in sharing one’s burdens. The forest, another symbol of non conformity and social ostracism, Dimmesdale seems to resolve his sin. He decides to flee his shame and by escaping with Hester, thereby freeing his inevitable scorn. He recognizes this darker side by descending into the forest, representative of sin and lust. However, when Dimmesdale states that he will not recognize Pearl as his illegitimate child in public, he shrinks from self-acceptance and chooses the safety of conformity over the harshness of reality.
Dimmesdale, viewed as an angel upon the earth, eventually cannot contain his shame. In the second scaffold scene, the minister recognizes his non conformity due to his overpowering sin. This time in full daylight, the once ‘electric trio’ is now subjected to public scrutiny. The intense and painful struggle which Dimmesdale has encountered conveys the message that humanity’s ultimately flawed nature causes its members strife, but our undeniable desires and humanity can be confronted. Dimmesdale, in collapsing on the scaffold, resolves his inner conflict. He exposes his true nature, shares the blame with Hester, and ceases his struggling. Only after recognizing publicly his sexual transgression is Dimmesdale able to die peacefully, and he dies appropriately in Hester’s arms.
Dimmesdale’s tragic story relates The Scarlet Letter’s meaning that conformity is secondary to self-justification. Hawthorne comments that even the most virtuous are flawed by nature, and it is useless to attempt to deny this fact. Dimmesdale’s tension subsides with his death, and the minister answers the question of his own nature that he cannot escape the lust.
Sample N
The play Death of a Salesman centers on the life of a traveling salesman named Willy Loman. Willy possesses an unshakable faith in the American Dream, at least in his younger years. Thus, he happily conforms to societal stereotypes and bows to societal pressure. But as his life begins to spiral out of control and he loses his job, Willy is driven to question the values for which he has striven, the values of success and happiness made possible by hard work. Willy’s conflict between his desire to conform and succeed in his society, and his despair over the fact that success seems unreachable, cause him to question the very nature of the American Dream—the central theme of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Willy’s belief in the American Dream initially leads him to conform to social expectations. His conformity is clearly evident in his work ethic. He is extremely proud of the fact that he works and can provide a life for his family. He believes in the old values of loyalty and reliability and never misses work he has been scheduled to do. These values actually restrain Willy from taking an opportunity that haunts him later in life, the opportunity of a job in Alaska with Ben, a figure he now sees only in dreams. He believes Ben struck it rich in Alaska by taking the risk; but Willy, who too steadfastly held to the ideal of the Protestant work ethic, chose to toil away in obscurity. He also meets societal expectations regarding his boys Bif & Happy, and tries to make them meet those expectations as well. Bif in particular is his source of pride; Bif, in high school, successfully fulfilled the All-American stereotype by becoming quarterback of the high school football team and earning his school a spot in the city championship game. Indeed, the memory of gathering his family to go to that championship game is Willy’s fondest memory, and it often recurs in his mind. This obsession exists because that moment in time was Willy’s highest point in the ascent to attain the American Dream; in that moment, he was able to feel as if he had successfully raised his boys, and that they in turn would be able to attain the Dream—good jobs and higher social status. Throughout his early life and even into middle age, Willy conforms to society’s rules because he holds societal esteem and success as his highest ideals.
But several disastrous occurrences cause Willy to begin to doubt the value of conformity. His son Bif is the most troublesome aspect of Willy’s life. After the apotheosis of their lives, the football game, Bif seems to slowly fade away. For one thing, he visits his father while Willy is on a sales trip and discovers that Willy has a mistress. This destruction of the idealized image of his father causes a complete collapse in Bif’s sense of value. Upon returning home, he fights with a friend and fails out of school. Unfortunately, Willy cannot accept this failure from Bif, which is compounded by the fact that Bif cannot even find steady work. Willy repeatedly insists that he did nothing wrong as a parent; he believes that because Bif attained social recognition in high school, Bif ought to have become a success later in life—a natural consequence of life according to the American Dream. But Bif is not the only failure that haunts him; increasingly, Willy begins to realize that even if he does everything the right way (according to society), success is not inevitable. This fact is brought home by Willy’s dismissal from his job. As he is being fired, Willy decries the fact that society can throw a man away like an orange peel, like “a piece of fruit!” He believes so strongly in the American Dream, in that mirage-like vision that says success inevitably follows hard work, that he can not comprehend his failure. But all these realities, these hard disappointments, ultimately cause him to question that ideal.
Thus, the conflict in Willy Loman, the conflict brought by his failure to succeed even when conforming, is the center of Arthur Miller’s critique of the American Dream. The ideal holds an almost rapturous power, as demonstrated by Willy’s complete acceptance of society’s expectations. He wishes to make himself and his boys the epitome of the Dream; he believes that if he does everything right and by the rules, failure is not possible. But Miller disagrees; Miller presents the reality of a world that is imperfect and full of chance (and the cruelty that chance may bring), a world incompatible with the American Dream. Indeed, as Willy beings to contemplate suicide he continues to think in society’s terms. He buys a life insurance policy with the macabre hope that he is worth more to his family dead than alive. The great irony is that even this idea fails; life insurance will not cover suicide and will not pay the Lomans. The American Dream, the desire to attain success and happiness, is impossible and undesirable in Miller’s eyes; it is only a dream vision, a utopian creation meant to invite conformity to ideals of values like hard work, loyalty, and success. But its cruelty lies in the fact that though everyone can want the Dream, few can actually have it. Perhaps Willy come to realize this at the end of Death of a Salesman, but—more importantly to Miller—Willy’s struggle must cause the reader to realize this fact, and be aware of the danger that lurks in dreaming.
Sample V
“A Doll’s House” by Ibsen shows the developing tension within Nora between her conformity to cultural expectations and her own inward questioning about the need for an individual identity. On the one hand, Nora wants to be the perfect wife, submissive to the authority of her husband. On the other, she wants independant thought and action, self-actualization and awareness, and an identity separate from her husband. She is torn between the security of conforming & the freedom of individuality.
Nora acts the role of her husband’s little doll as her actions show conformity. She is entirely submissive as she accepts the degrading pet names and insinuations of childlike stupidity. She dresses up for him and dances his dance that he would find her pretty. She acts reliant. She is happy to depend on him that way. She recognizes the dangers and implications toward the family of the forgery on the loan, but she wants and expects Torvald to take responsibility for it and to protect her. She willingly conforms because she feels safe and protected.
However, internally, Nora wants more independance. She eats her macaroons even though Torvald forbids it. When her husband is sick, she takes out a lone so that they can take a trip, and he can regain his health. She is proud of this even though the actions are socially unexcepable. She continually asserts that she had a right to act to protect those she loved. The climax of the story occurs as Nora’s inward struggle between her right to be her own person and her obligation to be what her husband and society expect of her culminates in the descision to leave therefore forsaking conformity to individualism.
Ibsen’s purpose was to show candidly the position of women of his era. The outward conformity is criticized in the name, “A Doll’s House.” He criticizes the falseness of society by creating a character who realizes she must be true to herself. The tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contrasts the cultural harm, the status quo, with a higher ideal. It showed the need for change within society. He criticizes the current society by pointing out the flaws in her system of conformity. Ibsen was successful I helping to bring about women’s rights movements and sufferagett voices because he showed the internal questioning that many women were feeling and pointed to another path, than conformity. Nora’s vacilation between outward total submission and inward desire to be her own purpose allowed Ibsen to show that that some tension existed in the minds of many women, and that conformity was not the only option.
Sample LL
Mrs. Dalloway, written by Virginia Woolf, is the story of a high society, middle-aged woman who has come to question nearly everything in her life. She questions her past, present, and future throughout the novel, which resulted in a true masterpiece and examination of the human mind and soul.
The protagonist of the story is Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, a woman of money and high position. Throughout her life she feels she has made mistakes, but no one would know it by her actions. Throughout the entire novel, she manages to keep an impressive exterior of happiness and contentment. As the story opens, she is preparing to throw a lavish party, one of her favorite pastimes. She is all smiles to the people who see her, and maintains the strict façade of a woman who “has everything together.”
On the inside, however, Clarissa’s fear of mistakes in her past and her search for the purpose in her life are consuming her. Whenever she finds herself alone, this thoughts emerge to the surface. The arrival of Peter, additionally, brings these feelings to a strong head.
Clarissa’s “outward existence which conforms” is contrasted deeply with her “inward life which questions”. She questions her judgments and her motives. She questions her marriage and love for her husband (should she have married Peter?) and she often questions her overall existence.
The tension that this conflict produces essentially moves the story along and contributes immensely to the work as a whole and the meaning of the work. This tension is so universal and so well understood by all audiences that it is nearly impossible for it not to contribute to the literary work.