FINAL BLOG: The Experieinces of a Woman...

Before this semester I had never really put much thought into woman’s literature. Now, after a full semester of it I think I have an idea of what it may be. To me, woman’s literature is the stories and the real experiences of what it means to be a woman. Throughout this semester, the readings showed us a woman’s responsibilities, fears, maturation, wants, needs, and most importantly struggle. We read about women being jailed, beaten, raped, neglected, and used. All of these things led us to learning about another important thing and that is a woman’s strength. There were stories where we saw women raped as in PUSH, and 2 or 3 Things. In both of those stories we see the female characters pick themselves up and use their experiences to better themselves and to move forward. There were stories where we saw women dealing with a loss by death as in the Shawl, Butterflies, and our first book, 19 Varieties of Gazelle. Rosa watches Magda as she’s killed by a guard, Dede loses her father, though they were not close, and Naomi reflects of her grandmother and her thankfulness for her. A major subject we see a woman dealing with in these books is being a mother. We read about the love from a mother, the sacrifices a mother must make, the responsibilities of a mother, and how a mother can be reflected in their child. In PUSH, we see Precious is neglected, beaten, and used by her mother. She is never shown any love and is never appreciated. Her mother even uses Precious as a ploy to receive welfare. Precious’ mother never took her responsibilities as a mother seriously and that led her to allow Precious to be raped and to miss out on an education until Precious took it upon herself to find a way out. Because Precious felt and remembers what her mother did to her and made her feel, she promises that her kids will be a priority to her. Because of her responsibility as a mother, Precious takes her education more seriously and tries to put her and Abdul in a better position in the future. My favorite book was by far The Vagina Monologues. Eve Ensler uses a perfect mix of humor and emotion to portray the reality of a woman’s experiences and maturation. One story I will remember most from the Vagina Monologues is the story about the young girl and her first experience with menstruation. I think that these monologues are most prominent to me because of how they tell a story of something so frowned upon to talk about…to men at least. As a man I never want to read of hear about a woman and what they experience during that “period”. It’s something you just don’t think about. Ensler makes it bearable and actually interesting to read about because of the quotes she uses like “Twelve years old. I was happy. My friend had a Ouija board, asked when we were going to get our periods, looked down, and I saw blood.” Things like that don’t make it so gruesome. 

• What is important to women in history, relationships, education, their bodies, self-identity, progress, and expression?

Education/Progress: Education is important to women because it shows motivation, it shows a sense of wanting to better ones self and to be in control. We see this most in PUSH. In push we see that when Precious tries to move forward and earn a better education that her mother tries to stop her. Her mother seems as if she is jealous that Precious may have more opportunities or taken advantage of more opportunities than she was able to. Precious uses education as a way to propel herself out of the hood. Education is progress to women.

Relationships: Relationships are important to women because like anyone else, women need to feel a sense of belonging. Look at the women from the Eve Ensler film we watched. In prison, these women rely on one another to get through their days and many of them will rely on each other to get through their lives. They have all been through terrible experiences and because of that they can relate to one another and cope with one another.

Body: The female body we see and read about in the Vagina Monologues. Ensler connects woman’s personalities and experiences to their Vaginas. Through the monologues Ensler emphasizes the importance of the vagina to the woman as a whole. She shows us that the Vagina is one of the many things that makes a woman so special, so unique, but also so vulnerable.

Identity: Identity is something that is also very important. We see this with Dorothy in 2 or 3 Things I know for sure. Dorothy sees what her older female family members have become. She sees how unhappy they are, how they are like a door mat for men, how they just take a back seat. She also sees how they treat her and it’s not lovely. She takes her life into her own hands and creates her own identity, not the one that her family has all just fallen into. She teaches herself to love people and to be open. She is a passion woman and hasn’t followed in the footsteps of her family members. 

As this class comes to an end I have learned in this course the importance of woman’s bodies, their minds, and their experiences. This course overall, emphasized on the sensitivity and also the strength that it takes to be a woman…

Sorry for the length. I became a little carried away. There was so much to about. Thanks You!

                

Dorothy and coping...

-For this last blog on 2 or 3 things I know for sure, I want to talk about how the main character Dorothy (though this is an autobiography) deals with her struggles in comparison to the many other female characters we have read about over this semester. In this story we read about Dorothy’s struggle in being physically abused, raped, somewhat tortured physically and mentally by her own family and stepfather.

-       In all of our other stories we’ve read, there has been a pattern of women struggling. Either by how they are treated, what they experienced, or how they lost a person they loved dearly.

In 19 varieites of Gazelle we see Naomi find a sense of gratefulness when her grandmother passes on.  In krik krak we see the women losing the one’s they love, prostituting for the sake of one’s child, and seeing a mother being treated as a witch.

-       -In every story we have that the majority of the female characters have been extremely strong and have amazing will and perseverance. Being enslaved, beaten, used, and even raped, they all still find their ways to cope.

-     - Dorothy like all of the other women found her ways to cope. She showed us that she was refusing to be what her other family members were. The things that she was taught not to do, she wanted to do. Despite how she was treated by her family, not shown love or anything towards what beauty is, she opens up to life and doesn’t get caught up in the past. In our last book, Rosa coped by not moving on for a long time from the past. Here, Dorothy leaves the past behind by focusing on not being what she was taught to be. She focuses on living life free, and loving people.

2 or 3 things I know for sure... Relating...

-So far I've found 2 or 3 things I know for sure to be a very deep story. By deep I mean that Dorothy tells a story that can be very similar to what many other people have experienced growing up and that's what keeps me interested and wanting to read more. With this story I feel like we're finally reading something that I can relate to or closely to. As we see, Dorothy is not shown much freedom or love from her family. She seems to be powerless growing up and is always reminded by someone of her lack of what they feel is "beauty". She is abused not only physically but mentally.

-The way I feel like I can relate is story of my brother Erik. Though I call him my brother, we are not blood, the story follows. Erik growing up was my brother Matt's best friend throughout the middle and high school years. Erik is similar to Dorothy because of how he was treated by his family and parents. He was always told by his mother how he was a useless bastard and would never accomplish anything in life just like his father who was in jail. His mother abused him and often times took away everything he had developed love for. For him those things ranged from pets, clothes, even to a laptop he used for graphic editing. Eventually he moved in with us during his senior year of high school and today he's very successful working and living comfortably in Alabama. Erik's mother I would say plays the role of Dorothy's stepfather.  I can't relate to this directly because growing up I was always shown love by my parents and family, like many others I was taught that I can be whatever I dream to be. I was loved as I feel everyone should be, but Dorothy is not. She's told what she can't do, what she can't think about and never does she see what she is capable of or how beautiful she really is.

The Shawl- Motherhood.

-This is the blog I couldn't submit sunday and was meaning to e-mail I completely forgot to do so. Sorry it took so long. Whether or not I receive credit is up to you. Sorry once again.

-This is another story about motherhood. Reflect on the way motherhood affects a woman's identity. How is Rosa's survival mitigated by the loss of her daughter/motherhood?

-From all of the books we’ve read over this semester I’ve seen that motherhood can be many different things, it depends on who the mother is and what motherhood their mother showed them. For example, In Precious we see Precious’ mother seeing motherhood as nothing more than an opportunity to use Precious as a maid. She has Precious do all the homely dirty work, but she never shows her any love.

-In the Shawl we see that Rosa takes Motherhood as something important to her. Early in the story in the camps, Rosa does everything she can to protect Magda, for to hide Magda she uses the Shawl. When Magda is discovered by the guards and is killed, the picture of Magda on the electric fence is burned into her memory. Rosa would sacrifice anything for Magda, be it food, warmth, or any comfort she would give it all for Magda. As the story continues on, Magda continues to drift further and further into her past memories of the camps. The main memory that leads her into isolation is Magda, how she was killed and how Rosa didn’t try to save her from the guard in the moment of her death. All of her trying to hide Magda from the guards, and keep her from any harm meant nothing now because she didn’t attempt to save her when it mattered most. In isolation in the hotel room Rosa is alone and she’s constantly thinking and writing to Magda, though Magda will never get to read the letters. This shows her guilt about not being able to keep Magda alive. Her showing guilt shows that she takes a responsibility for Magda.

-I think that’s what Motherhood is, is a responsibility of the mother to carry herself in a certain manner and to take responsibility for their children, to try to protect them. Once one has become a mother they change some of their ways for the better of the child, unlike Precious’ mother, but like Rosa. In all of the stories we’ve read that some mothers take motherhood seriously and others don’t know that motherhood is. 

Ozick's intentions...

What do you think Ozick's intentions are with this book? What does she want us to get out of it?


-I think Ozick's intentions are to show how previous painful experiences can always be with us, no matter how far away we are from the experience by time, or distance. 
-Personally, I think Ozick makes her point clear. After all of some 30 years that Rosa spends away from the Nazi camps, still her memories bother her and eventually lead to what seems to be her downfall. Once she smashes her shop and moves to Florida we see how poorly she truly does feel about herself and we see the problems that many people probably never saw.
-I think everyone in our class and all people by the college age know what it's like to experience something they wish they hadn't and that caused them pain, whether it be a relationship, an altercation, or an accident. -I can think of many times having my feelings hurt by someone and never being able to forget how they made me feel, but in the time where they aren't around I tend to forget what happened until I see them again and I feel the pain again.
- What Rosa feels is much, much more serious of an experience but, what she goes through is similar. For a time she tried to move on and not think about what she went through but, eventually her memories took over and led her to the Florid hotel room where she's living similarly to how she did as an inmate in the camps. I guess another one of Ozick's purposes could be to prove that you can only run from your past for so long.

The Shawl...

-So far, The Shawl has seemed like a very bleak story to me. By bleak I mean a very blank story, one that is very sad but yet for some reason hasn't evoked any emotion for me yet. This is different than the other stories I've read because in reading stories like Push and Butterflies I found myself getting caught up in the characters along with their situation and feeling bad for them. In The Shawl it's not quite that I don't feel bad for Rosa, Magda, and Stella it's just that their feelings are shown to the reader in an indirect manner, much different than with Precious. We never directly hear how terrible the camps are or get any details of what it's really like to be a detainee. All of the details we do get about the Nazi camps are watered down. Maybe it's because I've read other gruesome stories about the holocaust, it just doesn't seem to portray how bad it really was, possibly because of the length.

-Ozick tends to use a lot of figurative language in the story.

- In my eyes the magic Shawl is what the characters hope and lives revolve around. The Shawl is the only thing that holds them all together. It is their hope, their friend, and their security in a way. I have yet to finish Rosa's portion but it is apparent that Rosa still suffers from her experiences in the holocaust and The Shawl is still very important to her, it's still her protection, it still has the magic.

Confession...

For this blog I decided to focus on what we didn't have enough time to finish talking about in class and that is the Confession chapter.

- When I had first completed reading the Confession chapter I was shocked at the anger that seemed to be spewing in the words. It is obvious that the father finally boiled over. Could it have been false accusations that pushed him this far, or maybe how he was treated?

- In class we debated about whether or not this was a false confession. In my eyes, obviously it has to be. He talks about doing so many things and being so many places to commit acts that only a spy would. However, there are many areas where it's clear that the father couldn't have done what he admits to.
For example when the father says "I cut arrow-shaped swaths through my tomato fields to guide him the his next target" or when he says "I'm the slant-eyed sniper in the trees." These are things that we know the father is not capable of.

-I do not think that the confession is from the father being mentally run down into believing he is what the enemy thinks he his but, yet that it is a build up of raw emotion that he finally releases.

 - I think that all of the things that the father confesses to are probably just reiterations of what he was accused of but, presented in a sarcastic method.

-This may have been the fathers way of releasing the feelings he held in while in captivity and he seems to speak for many, many Japanese prisoners.

Kenji... Internment camps...

-At this moment I'm waiting for my library to receive my book. I should have it by saturday... Or so they say.
- In the mean time i figured I'd do my best to understand what happened in the 1940's and how the U.S Government portrayed things to be.
- As soon as I knew we were talking about Japanese Internment camps in the 1940's U.S. I began thinking about one of my favorite songs. The song is called Kenji by Fort Minor. Though the song is listed as a track by Fort Minor, the real story of the song belongs to lead artist and Japanese- American, Mike Shinoda. 
- In the song Mike talks about his grandfather's and other older family members recollections of the Japanese internment camps. I thought that it's only fitting that if I couldn't read the book and post about it, I could use this song as a point of relevance. I've been listening to this song for years because it has true meaning and depth. It talks about the Japanese being caught so off-guard by this treatment, especially in their own country. You can hear in his voice the feelings he possesses, anger not towards the U.S. but the situation in itself.


-The name Kenji is code name for Shinoda's grandfather.


-Here are some lyrics from the first verse. The song is too long to post all of the lyrics like I wanted to.


"When everybody was afraid of the Germans, afraid of the Japs,
But most of all afraid of a homeland attack,
And that morning when Ken went out on the doormat,
His world went black 'cause,
Right there; front page news,
Three weeks before 1942,
"Pearl Harbour's Been Bombed And The Japs Are Comin',"
Pictures of soldiers dyin' and runnin',
Ken knew what it would lead to,
Just like he guessed, the President said,
"The evil Japanese in our home country will be locked away,"
They gave Ken, a couple of days,
To get his whole life packed in two bags,
Just two bags, couldn't even pack his clothes,
Some folks didn't even have a suitcase, to pack anything in,
So two trash bags is all they gave them"


-From the second verse...


"Prisoners of war in their own damn country,
What for?
Time passed in the prison town,
He wondered if they would live it down, if and when they were free,
The only way out was joinin' the army,
And supposedly, some men went out for the army, signed on,
And ended up flyin' to Japan with a bomb,
That 15 kilotonne blast, put an end to the war pretty fast,
Two cities were blown to bits; the end of the war came quick,
Ken got out, big hopes of a normal life, with his kids and his wife,
But, when they got back to their home,
What they saw made them feel so alone,
These people had trashed every room,
Smashed in the windows and bashed in the doors,
Written on the walls and the floor,
"Japs not welcome anymore."
And Kenji dropped both of his bags at his sides and just stood outside,
He, looked at his wife without words to say,
She looked back at him wiping tears away,
And, said "Someday we'll be OK, someday,"
Now the names have been changed, but the story's true,
My family was locked up back in '42,
My family was there it was dark and damp,
And they called it an internment camp"

Movies are lame. Precious.

-This past friday night I finally decided to treat myself to Precious, the movie. After hearing everyone talk about how amazing the movie was and reading the book I thought it was only fitting the watch the film version of PUSH.

-Sadly, I think that the movie is very overrated. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I read the book first before watching a movie version of a story for the first time in my life(sad I know). To me the book left out so many details that were so important in the book. In the movie you only see two-scenes of Carl raping Precious, not that I want to see more scenes of it, but in the book it's such a big deal that Precious is being raped. In the movie because there are so little scenes of it, the rapes seem forgotten.

-Also, in the book we learn how close Precious gets with the girls from Each One, Teach One. They become something close to being called best friends. In the movie things are quite as obvious. In the movie we do see the girls bond, especially when Precious gives birth to Abdul but, other than that you don't see any critical bonding like we read about in the book.

-Similar to in the book, there are certain scenes in the movie that are hard to watch. For example, when Precious was being screamed at and beat by her mother because her father rapes her and ignores the mother. It's a very difficult scene to watch but it keeps you wondering what you'll see next. However, from here on the rest of the movie comes up short.

-I've never been a big fan of reading a story in comparisosn to watching a movie version of a story. I've always been a movie person more than a book person. This experience with PUSH and Precious was a shock for me. I expected the movie to be just as if not more exciting and revealing than the book was but, unfortunately it came up very short.

Precious and the ending...

What do you think of the ending of the book? Is it hopeful? What do you think happens to Precious and her son?


I do think the end of the book is hopeful. In the Life Stories at the end, some of the stories are creepy and gruesome but are very telling how the perceptions of Precious, Rhonda, Jermaine, and Rita really stand. 


 I think the ending is hopeful because in Precious' "Untitled" story she talks about many pleasant things. I'm not sure if she's talking about what happened in her dream or if the things she talks about are her dream, but nonetheless the things she speaks about are good things. 


Some examples:
" I have car
me n Abdul riding like
in the movies 
sun a yellow red ball
rising over the hills
where indeins usta live
beaches, Islands"


" I do have
lungs take in air
I can see
I can read
nobody can see now
but I might be a poet, rapper, I got 
water colors
my child is smart
my CHILDREN 
is alive
some firls in
forin countries
babies dead
Look up sometimes
and the birds
is like dancers."


These quotes make Precious seem as if she is somewhat seeing better days. She's trying to give herself things to be thankful for in her kids being alive and having smarts. These are great improvements over what she showed throughout the book.


"PLAY THE HAND YOU GOT
house mother say.
HOLD FAST TO YOUR DREAMS
Langston say.
GET UP OFF YOUR KNEES
Farrakhan say. 
CHANGE
Alice Walker
say. 
Rain fall down
wheels turn round
DONT ALWAYS RHYME
Ms Rain say
walk on
go into the poem
the HEART of it
beating like 
 a clock
a virus
tick
tock."


This last quote that finishes out the book show great hope from Precious. I believe this because because all of her quotes are inspirational and meaningful from inspirational people. It seems like she looks towards the capitalized words for hope. I think the PLAY THE HAND YOU GOT line says a lot about Precious. After everything she's been through with school systems, corrupt parents, poor health, and children at very young ages she is still going or like she says beating like a clock.


As for what happens with Precious and her son, I'm not quite sure where they go from here but I do think that they are headed for a positive atmosphere. While Precious knows that she is not where she wants to be she has shown signs of hope and even had enough belief to call herself smart. Things will continue to improve for her and Abdul if she stays on the track she's on.

Fun Home- Bruce's Death.

For my last blog on Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home", I've chosen to focus on whether or not Bruce's death was a suicide or not and whether or not him not coming out while younger like Alison does affected his outcome.
Personally, I think Bruce's death was a suicide. I, just like many other people in our class think that all of Bruce's embarrassment, feelings, and stress from being homosexual just continued to eat him up inside. A person can suppress their feelings for only so long and for Bruce it was a lifetime of suppressing and living by multiple personalities that did him in.

I think that if Bruce came out about his sexuality preferences at a young age he would've had a much greater quality of life. By coming out at a younger age Bruce may have never had children but at the same time he would've been able to be a gay man without anything holding him back. He wouldn't have a family to have to try to be manly for and he wouldn't have to misplace his feelings on his children like he did by trying to make Alison "super-girly." Coming out for Bruce would have of course been intimidating and embarrassing for some time but it would've prevented so much future heartache for Bruce, that eventually led to his death.

Fun Home- Maus

-For this weeks blog I figured I would compare Fun Home to a book mentioned in our last class that I had to read last semester, Maus by Art Spiegelman. Both books are photographic narratives and use pictures with small text to tell the reader the story and help them visualize the story.

-Maus, similar to Fun Home has the main character, Artie who is, like Bechdel, the author of the book. In the book he tells his father’s story about Germany and his experiences in the holocaust.

-One thing that is very similar between the two books besides using comics to tell stories is that Artie and his father share an awkward relationship just like Bechdel and her father.

-Facial expressions are used to great lengths in both of these stories and the expressions tell stories on their own. In Fun Home, we see Bechdel’s father using very blank expressions and only once does he crack a smile. In Maus, though the characters have the faces of mice, Artie’s father also has very flat facial expressions, sometimes even seeming depressing. 

Fun Home...

So far, Fun home by Alison Bechdel has been a very amusing story. When it comes to reading, I’ve always been one of those people who find it much easier to find interest in a book if it has pictures and luckily, this one is filled with them. At first I anticipated that Fun Home would initially be a comic but it turns out that it is much more than that. I think that Fun Home serves as many different things. I see it as a very illustrative comic, an autobiography of Bechdel and her child hood (as well as details about her father), and overall it all comes together to form a very well narrated story.  The pictures in the book help tell Bechdel’s story and I think that even without the writing and narrations from Bechdel, the pictures could make the story interesting and fun enough to still follow. Though I have not yet finished the book, I find that Bechdel’s narrations about her childhood and her relationship with her father can be very catching. So far it seems like Bechdel’s family is possibly a dysfunctional one.

Butterflies...

5) By the end of the novel, do you get used to Alvarez’s style? Why did she choose this style? Does it work? Is she able to get you to finish reading the book even though you know the ending? What does she focus on instead and why?

By the end of in the time of the butterflies I did find that I became used to Alvarez’s style of writing. However, at the start of the story it was very difficult simply because for example, Eve Ensler’s writing was very detailed and deep to the point that it kept you wanting more and it was easy to read and understand. Alvarez’s style of writing is more difficult to read simply because of using flashbacks such as Dede’s interview and the way that some character’s narrations change from 1^st person view to 3^rd person view depending on which sister it was.

I think Alvarez’ purpose behind switching 1^st and 3^rd person views was to force the reader to be more into the story and to think more about the story. Part of me thinks that maybe Alvarez had different narrations for different characters to help us remember who is who which story applies to that sister. For example, I initially remembered Dede basically based on her 3^rd person view and her flashback to her interview. It was like they served as a tab for me to distinguish Dede apart from the other sisters.

Alvarez does succeed at capturing the complete attention of the reader or at least she did in my reading of the story. I found the story to be amusing to read once I was used to her style of writing. Though it made the reading more difficult it kept the reader interested and begging for the next piece in what is a great story.

Dede: Timeline...

-1925: Dede Mirabel is born.

-Minerva is born.

-Mate is born.

-Takes part in fortune telling with Papa @ age 6 or 7.

-1938: Attends private school @ age 13. All of the sisters are sent to school with the exception of Mate.

-Meets Lio.

-Lio Leaves.

-Gets engaged and everntually married to Jaimito.

-Goes to ball with sisters. Trujillo interest against Minerva sister begins here now.

-Father gets arrested (relationship changer).

-1953: Father dies.

-Gives birth to her first child.

-Dede and Jaimeto’s ice cream shop and restaurant both go under and fail leading to bankruptcy.

-Patria tries to bury guns in the field and Dede refuses to help her sisters in rebellious acts. She refuses.

-Dede goes to church and Jaimito sees her with revolutionary priest.

-Jaimeto packs up kids.

-Dede goes to mother in laws house and tries to reconcile.

-1960: Sister have died and Jaimeto is the only husband not incarcerated.

-1994: present in story. Interview

Butterflies...

Here is the first of two blogs I owe for last week...

In my opinion, in the time of the butterflies is a pretty dragging story. Not to say that it is a bad story, I just found it to be difficult to read and because of that, it became less enjoyable. The story seems like it can be very depressing at times except for small areas of hope and there is so much struggle. The Mirabel sisters and their country are constantly held down and trapped. Whether it’s by their ruler, Trujillo, or their future planned ahead of them for school and marriage, the sisters are held back. I found the story to be difficult mostly because of the back and fourth between years and memories. The back and fourth makes it easy to get confused in where you are in the story and where it goes from there. For example, in the start with Dede the story is in 1994 and in the interview she reverts back to 1943. Another thing that makes the story more different to read is the way the narrations change. Some are in third person view like Dede and some are in first person. This story of the Mirabel sisters portrays a life of struggle with politics, government and like our other stories, life. (that’s the only thing this story has in common with the others.)

Reading vs. Performance

For this blog, I chose to write about the differences between reading a story, poem, or monologue and actually seeing it performed.

- This past friday in class we went over a story from Ensler's "I am an emotional creature" story. In the story the main subject is sex. As you read the story or poem as it seems to be written in a poetic format, you feel as if it's just one person saying many peoples different point of views on the subject. However, when we broke the story down into characters and had the characters perform the story for us in front of the class everything changed. The tone changed, the setting changed, and overall the whole atmosphere changed.
- The different expressions, voices, and gestures changed the entire poem, to me. When reading the story I never thought of it being a group of people or friends talking about sex, I thought of it more as the writer compiling these experiences and putting them together in the story.

- The difference between reading a story and seeing it performed is also shown by Eve Ensler with her Vagina monologue performances that I have watched on the internet. The tone and use of expression through something little like more emphasis on a word or lengthening a word out has a great effect on the viewer or listener. For example, when the man sitting in the front of the room performing as a character said "it(sex) should be illegal" using a higher pitched and more strung out voice, it made everyone laugh because it seems like the quote was supposed to be funny but, yet when you read it it doesn't come off as a joke or something intended to be funny at all.

They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy. . . Or So They Tried.

This story is about a transgender woman or the stories from transgender women, mixed into one. From the start of the story it is obvious that we are reading the experience through the mind of a gay man. He starts by talking about changing his sister's diaper and being jealous because his sister had a vagina and he wanted one. As the story moves forward the boy tells us about his feeling of not belonging and truly thinking he was a girl, a she. " I wondered why I was missing my bathing suit top at the beach." --This to me makes it obvious that the boy thinks like a girl. He then says how after being born, he was assigned a sex and how random he believed it was. " It has nothing to do with who you are."--I think what he means is that sex is something that shouldn't be determined by a genital organ but instead sex should be determined by who a person wants to be.

Overall this story makes it seem like having a vagina allows a person to be softer and to be more gentle... It makes it seem like it's peaceful.

"To touch"
"To pet"
"To hug"
"To help"
"To hold"

I think these example are meant to show softness and in some way point to softness and tenderness of the vagina and how it can relate to the soft and tenderness of a woman.

This story stood out to me because I feel like there is so much hatred in the world directed at gay people and I don't see why. I feel like every person is entitled to their own wants, needs, and desires. Just because a person is given a penis or a vagina doesn't mean that that is who they are. I've always been the type of person that accepts a person no matter what their sexual preferences are and it bothers me that in the year twenty- eleven people are still worrying about how other people live their lives. In this story it shows examples of people being beat because of who they are- a homosexual being.... something they ARE NOT wrong for. I'll never understand why people can't live the way they want to without someone having their own say.

Vagina Monologues reaction...

This past wednesday in class we all geared up and dug right into Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues". Not surprisingly, our class discussion this week was louder and more fun than ever and it seemed as if everyone had something to say. From people's thoughts on the menstruation stories to thoughts of what someone's vagina would wear if it could wear clothing, there were many different reactions and opinions all around the room. There were so many confused faces and demeanors, even a overall sound of "ouch" when the C word was used as a nickname for vagina. Shock would be the best way to describe the classes reaction to the "Vagina Monologues".

I think that the discussions and debates we had in class are exactly what Ensler is looking for. She wanted people to be shocked by the name vagina. I think in many ways she wanted people to be confused by the stories. As we went throughout the class it seemed that many of us had different things we were moved by in good and bad ways and that everyone seemed to have a different view of each of Ensler's stories. I'm sure this is also what Eve was looking for from her stories. The many different opinions of the monologues make them so much more interesting. Reading the story alone, I found to be entertaining enough but, going to class and actually seeing what everyone else took from the story makes it even more appealing.

Ensler's sense of humor makes some of the stories seem humorous. I don't think her point is to make a joke out of vaginas, but to just water down how censored the word is in society knowingly or unknowingly.

The Monologues....!

Before I start with my analysis I would like to state that "The Vagina Monologues" has been a very interesting and fun experience to read so far. I've always been the type of person that watches a movie of a story rather that reading the story so I wouldn't say that I am in love with reading. The fact that I found pleasure in reading Ensler's story speaks levels about her creativity and her fearlessness in writing about such a subject. "The Vagina Monologues" has been enjoyable to me because it's different. Before reading this I really didn't think much about the word "vagina" but, I knew it was a word that has at least seemed to make women uncomfortable... Seemed being the key word. With that being said...

The word "vagina" is technically the same in context as the word "penis" except one describes a male organ and one describes a female. However, the two words end up being completely different. There are always stories of guys debating over their penis size and trying to build themselves up around friends talking about how "big" their's is. With women however, we never hear them talk about their vaginas. Not ever can I remember hearing a woman speak about her vagina. It's like the word vagina is forbidden or like it has a bad meaning or something. Ensler hits it right on the head when she says the words sounds like "an infection at best."

After reading "The Vagina Monolgues" it seems as if Ensler's purpose for language is to show that vaginas are not a dark, gloomy place like everyone has them out to be. It seems like her purpose is to show how graceful and a vagina can truly be to a woman. In the monologues Ensler has the interviews that she had with women and in most of them, the women that truly noticed and got to discover their vagina loved it and saw how important the vagina is.
I think Ensler's purpose of the monologues is to gain some respect for vaginas and bring them to the same level as that of the penis. From pages 35 to 40 Ensler writes recollections from women on when they got their period the first time and how they wanted their period. In this I think she just wanted to show how much a girl has to actually deal with her vagina, from a young age. How much of a pain the period can be. For young boys and men, we never think about our penis or how we have to watch out for it once a month. Though Ensler doesn't directly say it, I think what she means to insinuate through "The Vagina Monologues" is how unique the vagina is and it's meaning in the world and to women in general. Not what WE think of the vagina, but what the vagina actually stands for.

Night Women/ Theme of Krik! Krak?

In the short story "Night Women" from Dandicat's "krik?krak!", there is a woman who works in the night, which is reason for the name "night women." However, the work that the women does isn't what most people would call a real job, but it helps her provide for her young son. Unfortunately, the work that this mother must take part in to provide for her son is prostitution. At night, next to her son's bed, the woman takes part in prostitution always afraid that her son may awaken and catch her in the act, especially as he grows older and more aware of what's going on around him. Every night before her son goes to bed, the women gets dressed up and preps herself for the clients that will be visiting. When her son asks his mother why she gets prettied up she tells him that she is waiting for angels to come in the night. If the son ever awakens and catches the mother at her job, she tells herself that she will tell her son that the client is his father just visiting for the night.

-In this story it's obvious that the mother has a love for her son and that she feels obligated to provide for him by any means possible, which is why she depends on prostitution. This story makes the reader feel sympathy for the characters. First, for the mother. Never do I see lying to someone you love as something that's particularly good, but in this case the mother has no choice but to in order to protect her son from the truth that could and most likely would completely alter the boys perception of his mother no matter what age he is. She, a young and single mother hates her job, but knows it's something she must do. Second, the reader is also forced to feel bad for the son who believes his mother when she says that she is waiting for an angel to come in the night. Also, the boy is growing up with no father which is something no child should have to endure.

In this story, just as the other stories in "krik?krak!", we see a tendency to see the women struggle. In "children of the sea", Celianne is raped and must deal with her child being born dead. Because of her pain, she drowns herself in the ocean. In "Nineteen Thirty-Seven", Josephine must deal with her mother being imprisoned as a witch. Josephine never understands why her mother in the way she was until her mother's passing. In "A wall of fire rising", Lili is the mother who is proud of her son and her husband but must deal with the families financial struggles. However, Lili still finds ways to persevere and to find happiness no matter how bad the families struggles are, until Guy's death. Now in this story we have the mother struggling to provide for her son without prostitution. It is becoming a theme in "krik!krak?" that we see women struggling...

My Krik? Krak! Assessment

The first short story in Dandicat's Krik?Krak! novel, we read a story called " Children of the sea." In children of the sea there are two separated characters who are in love with one another. The two lovers write love letters to one another that unfortunately are never read by the other. The female speaker writes in her letter in a manner as if she was talking to herself or venting to a journal entry. Her writing is very informal and unorganized. The female is writing about her frustrations in the fact that the world holds back her and the male character from pursuing their love and that she one day hopes that they will reunite, though it is unlikely. One of the things holding back their love is the girls father who is very controlling and watchful of his daughter. In the male figures letter, he writes about fleeting Haiti and being opposed to the Haitian government. He writes about how he hates the suffering he sees in Haiti. While writing his letter he describes that he is on a small boat or raft of some sort that is in the ocean fleeting Haiti while writing this letter to his lover. On the small raft, he meets a teenage girl named Celianne. She is pregnant and basically in birth with a child that took place through her being raped by a soldier. When Celianne's baby is bored prematurely and already dead, Celianne takes her own life by drowning herself in the ocean. It is at this point that the male begins to fear the fact that he will never see his female counterpart ever again. He writes about the rising levels in the raft and becoming a "child of the sea." Back home, the female lover sees black butterflies and wonders what they mean and if the mean the death of her lover. We are left wondering whether or not the male lover lived or not...


 Overall, I think that Dandicat did an amazing job at making the reader feel as if they are in between the two lovers. I sort of felt as if I was a messenger for the two. Reading how the male feels, and how the female feels showed me how strong love can truly be. Though they didn't know if they would ever see each other again, these two characters never gave up hope on their love. With rising waters in the raft in the middle of the ocean, the male figure admits that he worries he may never see his lover again. However, he then writes about how their love will live on whether he sees her again or not. When the female sees the black butterflies flocking around her, she thinks about her lover and if the butterflies signify anything. She seems as if she is in denial when she tries to avoid the butterflies, like she already knows that he has passed. It's as if the writer attempted to use the butterflies as foreshadowing the death of the male. Never do we find out what really happens to the couple. Hopefully later in the story we will...

-This story made me think about what love truly is and how love can still exist even though the lovers may not. Dandicat did an amazing job of introducing the reader into the center of the story and making the reader feel sympathy for the two main characters. -"Children of the sea" is a great read.

19 Varieties of Gazelle

Throughout 19 varieties of Gazelle, Naomi Shihab Nye tells many great stories through her poetry. She talks about her experiences of being Palestinian American and most importantly her family. Though many of Naomi’s poems do not directly mention and family member, you can see that she reflects on her experiences and her love for her family members through her poetry. For example: in the “ my grandmother” poem, Naomi talks about the sadness and grasping of her grandmother moving on, or passing away. In the third stanza it is as if she showing a thankfulness for her grandmother. However, never do the words in the poem show on the paper that it is her grandmother that she is indeed referring to. The talent and content in the poem is what leads you to believe that it is indeed her grandmother. In the poem “ my father and the figtree” Naomi speaks about her father and her memories of him and his love for a figtree. Because the figtree is sentimental to her father, it becomes sentimental to her. Also, her father’s memories of the fig tree become her memories of the figtree. 19 Varieties of Gazelle is Naomi’s way of showing us some experiences in her life and the meaning of her family to her through her amazing poetic talents. 

Marching Men

The poem I chose to reflect upon for my first post is called Marching Men and is written by Martin Harris.

Marching Men

Think of wars in the past and then of wars that we have left 
For when your country calls for you to murder, maim and persecute
In a war where nothing is gained, where the slaughter of people is inhumane
When your country sends its war machine of marching men and bullets clean
Rivers flow the colours red, drained from men that have been bled
And they tell you that God is on your side. That when you kill its justified.


But the spoils of war turn bad, when you send friends home in body bags
With anger strong and bitterness high, you struggle to fight the emotions inside
You’re told to be tough, you’re told to be mean, that you’re not a man, you’re a 
killing machine
But hidden away deep down inside, you are a man and you cannot hide
For your children scream and your children cry, for they don’t understand the 
reason why
Why at war its right to take a life but in peace time, it’s our worst crime
So your country knows what‘s good for you, now take your orders and carry 
them through
And finish it quick the job you do, to kill another man
For there will never be peace on earth my friend 
So listen to the feet of the marching men.




This poem is meaningful to me because I have a brother serving in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army and a brother who also served two years with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Growing up I've idolized my two older brothers, Matt and Erik. However, that doesn't mean that I am completely comfortable with their careers. Though I support them and every other American soldier 100%, I have a hard time coming to grips with the destructive, debilitating force we call war. Growing up, my father always that if I'm ever going to fight for anything, fight for peace. Because of that I have a difficult time thinking of my brothers as soldiers. I just think it's sad that as great as our nation can be, we still must rely upon American soldiers to kill for our freedom. Something that is illegal in a regular society, but necessary in a war setting as the poem says. Another thing in the poem that caught me is how it speaks about soldiers and how deep down inside they are men and women, and that they do have emotions. This points out something rarely pointed out. In our society we view soldiers as strong, tough, brute heroes, and many people see past the fact that though they are heroes, they are just as vulnerable and fragile as the rest of us.