Analysis Of The Novel Orleanna Price And Caroline Compson

Orleanna Price and Caroline Compson, two southern women tremendously alike in many ways, but substantially different when it comes to the pivotal moments of their family’s lives. Both of these women, on many levels, could be considered the same, despite the thirty-year time gap between their stories, but I aim to prove their differences. While Caroline Compson is an all to classic 1930’s help assisted housewife, her role as a â€Å"yes dear† passive wife makes her an utterly incompetent mother, breeding four children who ultimately either kill themselves, leave home, or worst of all, become a sociopathic narcissist, leaving the mentally handicap son as the hands down winner of most â€Å"normal†. While I do believe that Orleanna Price’s character is†¦show more content†¦Even though Caroline Compson also dealt with the death of a child, her choosing to remain stagnate solidifies her place in a long line of passive women to go down with their men. Therefore, however many similarities that can be found between Orleanna and Caroline are utterly dismissed when the whole picture of their characters is taken into account. Though she had her faulting moments in the beginning I believe Orleanna Price was never truly submissive to her husband, but submissive to the time she lived in. Even though both Orleanna and Caroline were married to awful husbands, Mr. Compson never truly ostracized his wife like Mr. Price, however erratic she behaved, Mr. Compson still gave a small degree of respect to his wife, while Mr. price only viewed Orleanna as free home labor. This again highlights the differences between these two women, if we take a general tally Caroline Compson never experienced half the degree of hardships that Orleanna did in the Congo, therefore should not Caroline be the one more incline to become a better woman and mother? As we can see, when truthfully compared, 3even with their similarities, Orleanna can never verifiabl y be placed in the same category of passive as Caroline Compson, though similar, Caroline’s choice to remain docile in the face of disaster completely sets her apart from Orleanna, who in the end,