Thursday, July 28, 2011
Everyday Use
The mother statement about Maggie is an eye opener:
“Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her.”
The statement does give the eye opener that Maggie feels envy and inferior to her sister due to her burns but it also clarifies another issue in this mother-daughters dynamic. The mother has often back down to Dee which made Maggie believe that Dee always gets what she wants. When Dee came to the house for a visit and wanted the quilt meant for Maggie, the mother tried to offer Dee another quilt by saying, “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?” She knew the quilt was meant for Maggie, so she could have told Dee. But she did not. This makes me wonder how many times in the past has incidents like this occur. The blame for Dee and Maggie’s failed relationship also fall on the shoulders of their mother. Only in the end of the story does she stand up for Maggie but it seems as if her actions were a little too late.
How It Feels to Be Colored Me
“The terrible struggle that made me an American out of potential slave said “Go!” The Reconstruction said “Get set!”; and the generation before said “Go!” I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.”
She refused to allow the past hurts due to slavery to hold her back and keep picking at it like an open wound. For Hurston, slavery was, “Sixty years in the past.’ The fact that she was, ‘the granddaughter of slaves”, was not going to become a constant handicap for her. She was not going to apologize for who or what she is as a colored woman but she also was not going to harp on the past either.
Hurston stated, “It fails to register depression with me.” I believe her mindset towards the issues she faced as a colored woman was a good one. Self loathing, depression, and pains of the past would not cloud her future. That was one of the main reasons I was drawn to this essay. I took away from it the idea of constantly moving forward and ignoring those things that cause emotions of pity, pain, and anger.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Shiloh
From the beginning we see the struggles between husband and wife. The husband used to be a long haul trucker who was gone the majority of their marriage. The wife enjoyed her time at home alone and when the husband became injured and had to stay at home all the time, the strain on their marriage was overwhelming. The mother in the story does not help matters at all. The wife already feels like she has no privacy from her mother because she is always dropping in and spending tons of time at the house, but now she also has no alone time from her husband.
The husband just wants to please the wife, but as most husbands :) is clueless as to how to achieve his goal. He wants to build her a log cabin which is the last thing the wife wants. All she wants is some time alone!
When the couple goes to the Shiloh battlefield for a day trip, the setting could not be more appropriate for their fight to play out. The battlefield setting gives them the perfect backdrop for their disintegrating marriage.
I think that this story was very interesting and I loved reading it, I look forward to reading more from this author.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri’s story showed the internal hardships that one faces when growing up in a place where you look different from everybody else. It not only shows the cultural difference between her and her parents, since they were raised in an Indian household, and how she has become “Americanized” because she is raised in America but also the confusion of not knowing where she fits in. She looks Indian and acts American in her parent’s point of view but is Indian in her peers’ point of view so naturally there is another conflict on whether to seek her parent’s acceptance or that of her peers. This, I believe, is what affects her will to write. In the beginning of the story, when she was younger, upon discovering the fact that she was different from everybody (at least in appearance) drove her to write in order to have a common ground with the other students in her class: “When I began to make friends, writing was the vehicle […] [it] was less a solitary pursuit than an attempt to connect with others.” During her teen years when insecurities are usually at their peek it lead her to not only reject herself but to quit writing all together. I see the direct correlation between her internal strife and her interest in writing. While writing she finds that it is a safe-haven from all her insecurities and worries, a place when no-one will cast stones and judge based on race or social status or gender but only by what is written. When writing she no longer has to dwell on whether she should act Indian or American in order to gain acceptance but only focuses on the fact that she is a writer.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Bloodchild
Shiloh
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sandra Cisneros
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Mother
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Fish, Anaylsis.
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting the ash-heaps;
opening and shutting itself like
I feel that this is symbolic of women writers of the time period and the struggles they had to become 'successful.' They must wade through darkness and solid matter, sift through the prose and poetry of women authors who have long since died.
an
injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side
of the wave, cannot hide
there for the submerged shafts of the
sun,
split like spun
glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness
into the crevices—
in and out, illuminating
the
turquoise sea
of bodies. The water drives a wedge
of iron through the iron edge
of the cliff; whereupon the stars,
I feel that this is symbolic towards the way that although women writers have tried to hide behind androgynous names, male critics still blare the spotlight on their short comings and in the male point of view ineptitude towards the art of writing. The water iron is symbolic of the two ways women must internally navigate through housewifery and duty and the need to create and not let atrophy take over the creative muscle of the mind, a cliff one must take a leap of faith with or ignore to the quiet discontent of housewifery and duty.
pink
rice-grains, ink-
bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green
lilies, and submarine
toadstools, slide each on the other.
Pink is a feminine color and rice is traditional at weddings in order to promote good fortune and fertility. The jelly fish, crabs and toadstools could all by symbolic to the three faces of Eve. The crabs- like lily's indicate that while pretty on the outside the core of woman is much harsher. Going along with this imagery is the toadstools which are poisonous. Jelly fish also pretty to look at but poisonous stingers align to show that woman is a creature of nature that may look pretty, or harmless has a poison or mean streak hiding in her bosom.
All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice—
all the physical features of
ac-
cident—lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it; the chasm-side is
dead.
Repeated
evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it.
This I believe reestablishes the fact that women writers have been scorned and as a result many have their creativity killed. However, it is also saying that creativity can procure out of experience of growing up and that knowledge envelops itself in the mind of women in their creative abodes. Overall I think the fish is a metaphor for womens creative muscle and the way it has been spurned throughout history and although facing so many obstacles is still able to live in the slimy, dark, submerge of male dominated society.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
The Scarecrow
Tillie Olsen. NPR article and excerpt
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The House of Mirth Drawing-Room
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The House of Mirth
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Casey's post re: "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Angel in the House images posted by Ambivalent
http://www.halen.com/images/uploads/the_truth.jpg
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
New Yorker article on Harriet Beecher Stowe
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Welcome to our class blog!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Dickinson, Emily. "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" and "I'm Wife--I've Finished That
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-m-wife-mdash-i-ve-finished-that/