Three Lives by Gertrude Stein – Novel
“Three lives” is a novel written by Gertrude Stein
and it talks about three separate stories, which are focused on three working class
women and the story takes place in the fictional city of Bridgepoint. The novel
contains in three different parts, it talks about the three women lives and how
are those lives are different from one another. The first part of the novel, it
is about a German girl named Anna “The Good Anna”, which describes her
life as working women that came to America with her mother, who eventually dies
of tuberculosis. Anna’s life goal is to help other; she is a hard-working housekeeper,
is a good friend and very generous. Anna worked herself out until she dies
during an operation. The second part of the novel named “Melanctha”, is
about the life of a young black women who was born to mixed-race parents. Melanctha is a very beautiful girl and well-educated
as well. She was raised with violence and was abused when she was a child by
her own father. Melanctha fails to find the happiness she always looked for and
she fails to create a life she always dreamed about, and all this was as a
consequence of her mental illness – depression from the traumas she had since a
child. Eventually Melanctha dies alone from depression and tuberculosis. The third
part of the novel, “The Gentle Lena”, describes the life of another German
girl who came as an immigrant in America with her family when she was a child.
Just like Anna, Lena also worked as a housekeeper. She always dreamed of a love
marriage, but instead she was forced to marry a man against her will. Lena
gives birth to three children, but still she was unhappy. Unfortunately, Lena
dies while giving birth to her fourth child.
As reading this novel, I could see how American dream had different
point of views from the three girls. Each one of them had different aspects of the
American Dream. The concept of American dream comes as a belief that anyone,
despite their class, nationality can be successful in a society where
everything could be possible for anyone. It is seen as something easy, but
instead the American dream is reached through hard work, sacrifice, chance but
sometimes it just can’t be reached at all. The three working women came to
America with the idea of a better life, with the idea to reach the American
dream, each one of them with different perspectives and ideas. I can see how
class has a great impact on your life. The three working women has been through
a lot of things, such as working hard did not get them to reach the dream. Anna
was happy, was working hard to help other and to see the American ream, even
thought it was really hard to do so, until she dies. Melanctha is shown in the novel
with complex racial, gender, sexual constructs and leaves room for
interpretation, and her condition took her to death. Lastly, Lena the immigrant
German that came to America to reach the dream, she turns out to see the American
Dream as a personal nightmare that leads her to her death at the end.
As a knew knowledge and from another point of view I see
that being a working class and being a women is hard to reach the American
Dream and all these elements from class, gender, race impact the journey to
reach the American dream, which can be seen differently from anyone’s
perspective and can have different consequences and outcomes. My parents and I came
to America five years ago with the idea of we were going to live the American Dream,
but little did we know what we were going to face. Every one of us had to work
super hard for us to be able to survive and then to start and build a live. And
I know it is not easy, especially from the class you come from, the nationality
and what identity you have.
I enjoyed your analysis of this book. I moved half way across the country 11 years ago away from my family and everything I knew. It must have been so much harder for you coming from another country. I agree the American dream isn't as attainable as it once was. Just working hard isn't enough anymore. Everything is expensive and saving for the house and all the things the "dream" entails is really not possible for most people anymore.
ReplyDeleteHi Klaudio great wow incredible analysis the author seems to have done a great job talking about how much Anna had overcome to get their.
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