Hulga: A Disabled Woman With a Strong Will to Live - Essay Sample

Introduction

Hulga's character portrays a disabled woman with a strong will to de strong by building her life and world to maintain her position. She is intelligent, a scholar, and cynical. Through her readings, she develops complex thinking making her get annoyed by the triviality of life and meaningless conversations between her mother and Mrs Freeman. Hulga's disabilities include a wooden leg and a weak heart. Her disabilities confined her at home, and instead of wallowing in self-pity, she uses her time to read books to enhance her intellectual capabilities. She knew that being more intellectual than other people would be her greatest weapon against those who may take advantage of her disability. She also develops reflective capabilities to face her fears and disability by evaluating the religious concepts governing her world. Instead of accepting the concepts as true, she grounds her life on philosophy.

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Through her constant reading, she considers herself an intellect through a Ph.D. in philosophy. On reaching twenty-three years of age, Joy changes her name to Hulga as a symbol of change, from the naive world of her mother, since she believed that religion was not worth her time (249). She positioned herself above typical Christians whom she considered hypocrites. She believes in herself and her capabilities so much that she decides to seduce the Bible Salesman. However, Hulga's weak-point is tested when the Salesman requests to have a glimpse of her artificial leg. The request makes her feel like she is connected to the world by allowing another person to access her vulnerabilities. The Salesman takes advantage of her and takes off her wooden leg leaving her helpless. When Hulga's glasses are removed inside the ban, she is left blind and helpless. Now, Hulga has no leg or sight to signify stealing away of the individuality of freedom and persona as a woman. However, Hulga remains strong, since no one can take her intellectual power.

The character of Evey from V for Vendetta by David Lloyd and Alan Moore

In the beginning of the novel, Evey Hammond is a naive 16-year old girl with a vision of earning money through prostitution. Evey lacks control of her life. She lives in fear of living like her parents, and being punished for her beliefs (8). She is pessimistic and has no hope for a better life. She curses her current circumstances when she sees the world's evils when people do evil things, yet she can do nothing about it. She fears that her voice will not make any change. When she decides to get into prostitution, V saves her from it. V becomes her guardian angel by guiding her through when growing up. Her passion and good heart make her refrain from killing people when furthering her beliefs. Throughout the story, Evey is a symbol of hope, strength, and resilience of a woman to reconstruct a broken society.

After V rescued her, he takes her in and grooms her to develop her own character. She is obedient and willing to learn to escape from her circumstance of fear of fighting against her government. She is obedient to V, although she begins thinking for herself. When she saw a detective aiming a gun at V, she decides to come to V's aid (69). She helps V because she believes in doing the right thing. Under V's care, Evey experiences a revolution through beatings, interrogations, and starvation, a near to death experience. From this experience, she develops a purpose and establishes a renewed hope of a suffering woman. V teaches her of the importance of integrity through staying true to herself, irrespective of the consequences. On her rebirth, Evey becomes a revolutionary. She embraces her integrity and rebels against the oppressive regime and hopes to restore the normality of society. She sacrifices her comfort and driven by courage to fight for peace, freedom, and justices; she puts in hard work to fight against anarchy. She decides to fight for her beliefs and changes to make her wellbeing and that of the people better.

The character of Emilia from Othello by William Shakespeare

Emilia represents the strength of a woman in defending the truth and maintaining her integrity. At first, Emilia is one of her husband's puppets. She convinces her mistress to advocate for Cassio when Desdemona and Cassio meet. She stole Desdemona's handkerchief and gave it to her husband without much interest in what he intended to do with it (3.3). Emilia's action shows a passive woman and a complicit in her husband's bad intentions towards Desdemona. Despite her support, her husband used sharp and rude language and referred her as a foolish wife (3.3). As the act progress, we see a woman with a huge sense of self-awareness and shows women vulnerability and abuse by their husbands as their own doing. She tells her mistress that it not the husband's fault when a wife falls (4.3). She acknowledges disrespect from husbands by saying that husbands devour their wives when hungry, and when full, they treat them with contempt (3.4).

Emilia also shows the character of a courageous and self-assured woman. She approaches Othello and scolds him for disrespecting his wife and faces him after killing Desdemona. She does so aware that she was dealing with a murderer who would kill her to get rid of a witness. She insists on justice against Othello fiercely (5.2). She noted that her husband was responsible for Desdemona's death and became furious. She insists on speaking out the truth because she cannot live in a lie. Her husband threatens to kill her, and her continuous insistence costs her life. Lago stabs his wife, just like Emilia, for insisting on telling the truth. When dying, Emilia seeks atonement for helping Lago in his crimes in the past, hoping that she will be redeemed from her previous mistakes (5.2). In her Character, Emilia dies a heroine for defending truth even though she was doing so to her husband.

Works Cited

David, Lloyd and Alan, Moore. "V for Vendetta", 1982

Flannery, O'Connor. "Country of Good people", 1955

William, Shakespeare. "Othello" 1604