I am going to circulate my new ideas on Goodreads and a Facebook group I am still a part of from a class last semester. Feel free to comment!
Friday, March 14, 2014
Ella En-control
I've been thinking a lot this week about a character's control of their surroundings and the things that happen to them in the novel Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. What are characters in control of in a text, and why? The main character, Ella, starts her journey with very little control over her decisions. She is bound to the desires of those around her. Yet she drives and controls the flow of the novel. Her happy ending is achieved when she regains control over her own decision-making. My question then is what does this mean in connection with the men in Ella's life? The two men I am most interested in writing about are Ella's father, Sir Peter, and of course, Prince Char? What do they do to support or conflict with the feminist themes in the novel?
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I don't remember the book very well, but from what I remember, I think they both build up the feminist themes in the novel, because both of them cause her to take control of her life whether they realize it or not. Prince Char does this by not trying to control her. Sir Peter tries to control her, but that only shows her how much she dislikes not being in control and causes her to rebel in more subtle ways.
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