Final Blog Post

 Throughout history, women have been portrayed in history as being on a lower level then men. Especially in the history of this country, women were not seen as equals to men. Women originally had no rights and were only in the background of society. As most of us know today, women are a huge part of our society and the reason that the world still spins today. Without a woman, we wouldn’t be able to reproduce, we wouldn’t have a mate, as men we underestimate the power of a women.  The readings in this class showed me as a man just how powerful women are. They gave in depth perceptions as to what a women feels, how they think, women empowerment and also a look into a women’s self-identity. Each novel showed a woman in her time of struggle or success and how they came to overcome the hurdles placed in their way.

In, The Vagina Monologues, author Eve Ensler put together a collection of women’s stories that showed the struggle of a woman finding her true identity and thoughts of themselves.  Most women could relate to at least one of the stories told in the novel having been through the same type of situation or having felt some of the same feelings.  After breaking down the novel, it is seen that the word “Vagina” in the title is used to symbolize a women..  In this drama, Eve lays the groundwork for women’s thoughts and feelings. She expressed women empowerment through her use of the world “vagina”. Instead of the words having been used as a sexual term or a term used only to describe a body part, she used it to be used as person, speaking for all the women out there. “The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise." This fact found in Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie gave even more thoughts of power to women when Eve quickly compared the male reproductive system versus a women’s saying, “ who needs a handgun when you have a semiautomatic”. The novel, Push, also showed the empowerment of women.  Even through everything she faced in her lifetime, with a little push from someone who truly cared, she was able to turn her life around. Instead of becoming something that she always thought she had to be or fit the mold of, she became exactly what people didn’t expect her to become.  Most women have that strength to push but fall into the view of what society wants or expects them to be. In most cases, this stops the women from being able to do or be what they want.       

As we all know, it is true that women are very openly emotional. Unlike men, women wear their emotions a lot more then men. Society tells us as men that it is not manly to show all your emotions. Based of that fact, women are seen as more emotional then men because society says it is ok for them to show their emotions.  The feelings that women convey give a sense of direction as to where their identity lies. As society puts it, women are only allowed to feel but not to act. In the story, Krik Krak, the author speaks on how writing for women is dangerous, that women shouldn’t be the writer but be the storytellers. “Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories. Stories are the way to touch the heart and go on living.” This quote from the novel, Two Or Three things I Know for Sure, shows exactly why these women are story tellers. Each novel was written by women but only in the purposes of telling a story. In each individual story, the women expressed how they felt in every situation. The hardships that these women faced in the stories gave the reader a sense of exactly what was going on and how It felt to be there. In the novel, The Shawl, the reader got the chance to feel the feeling of being a mother, losing a child and also the feelings of being in a concentration camp during the holocaust. These are feelings that no one would be able to either see or feel unless they were there. Even in the story of, When the Emperor Was Devine, the reader was able to feel what it was like to be a Japanese-American woman after the affects of the world war. Going from being a regular American, to being discriminated against by their own people.

For these women, the writing and stories helped to move on or to find themselves. Through their emotions, empowerment and finding of self identity, these women were able to move on with their lives. The writing played a huge role in these women being able to move on with their lives from some dramatic experience that may have changed them o r shaped them differently. In this class, we learned that what society says about women is false. Those women are a very important and crucial part to the society. Also those women are just as important or more important to society then men. 

I'd Rather Wear My OWN Coat

"Two or three things i know for sure and one of them is that i'd rather go naked then wear the coat the world has made for me." After reading this quote in the story, i began to think about what it really meant and my connection to it. Society expects certain people to act certain ways in certain situations. Especially in many minority societies, citizens are expected to act a certain way because of what the statistics or stereotypes say. I could directly relate to this quote by Dorothy Allison, in my life i have experienced this "Coat" in which society tries and gets me to wear. In the simplest form, this quote is stating that Dorothy would rather be an outcast then live by what society expects her to live by or expect her to feel. In the pictures we spoke upon in class, we could see that Dorothy felt this way. In two of the pictures we see her playing with and shooting a gun, which, as she stated earlier in the novel, wasn't something considered lady like or something women should be doing. In my life, i have been doubted, stereotyped and even mislead and misheard because of the color of my skin or where my family has came from. Many people assume for me to act a certain way or do certain things because I am African-American. I have been denied , mislead and unheard throughout my years and have had to strive for everything that I've wanted. Many people said i wouldn't make it to college, but here i am. Others said i would never be able to do the things i am doing today, but once again here i am doing and living these things many said i couldn't do. The statements of doubt and "cant's" helped me to strive to achieve more. I also did not want to wear this cloak or coat that society wanted me to wear. I fi would have worn it, today, i wouldn't be writing this post or even be reading any of these novels expanding my horizons. But this quote doesn't just only fit for minorities, it exists for everyone. In some way, everyone can relate to this quote with things that society expected them to do which they didn't want to or see fit of themselves.

Motherhood

Women are a very vital part to the succession of life. Granted, it takes a man and women to create life, it may only take a women to raise a person. Throughout the stories we have read, motherhood has been a very important aspect.In the novel, Push, becoming a mother was one of the reasons that the main character was able to move on in her life.  In the novel, When the Emperor was Devine, the mother played a huge role in keeping the family together in a time or sorrow and disproval. Rosa, in both the Shawl and Rosa showed exactly just how important and hard being a mother is. Becoming a mother changes the way a women thinks and her identity as a whole. Instead of being able to think about yourself as a women and your needs, a mother must not only think about herself but also her child's needs. In all cases, the child's need must be put before the needs of herself as a women. In the first story Shawl, we could see this exactly when Rosa risks her life to keep Magda alive and with her. Knowing that if Magda was found they would both be shot and killed, she still made the sacrifice to keep Magda. When food was scarce in the camps, Rosa made sure that Magda was the first fed even if her own stomach was empty. At the time it says that Rosa was breast feeding Magda, but the scarceness of the food made her milk less nutritious for Magda. Having a child changes a persons identity in the fact that they must change their whole point of view on life. It makes the person realize the true importance of some things in comparison to others. Since motherhood was so important to Rosa, once Magda was killed by being thrown against the fence, her whole life changed again. Having had to shift her lifestyle to become a parent, moving on from having a child to now not having a child was virtually impossible to Rosa, as we can see through the story Rosa. It was hard for her to move on in her life without thinking what could, should or would have been with Magda. Everyday she felt a sense of guilt that she was a bad mother to her child because the fact that she didn't and wasn't able to help Magda survive. At that point in her life, Rosa's main duty was to make sure of the survival and health of Magda. With Magda's death, it made Rosa feel as though she failed as a mother. This was the reason she wasn't able to move on with her life because she felt that she failed at the only job she had, being a mother.

Social Classification

Rosa's views of herself and society were  a huge factor in her progression to letting go of her past and moving on the the future. Before the Holocaust, Rosa's family held high status in the community. In her letter to Magda, she speaks about her past and the life she she once had. Rosa recalled how she felt or was told to feel about the people around her. The other members of society were looked down upon by Rosa and her family because of the type of slang polish that they spoke. Because of the fact that these citizens didn't speak proper Polish, Rosa felt that she was better then them. Also, as she said in her letter to Magda, she didnt consider herself Jewish. When she was in the concentration camp, Rosa said she recalled seeing all the people in the camps who were too religious. She described them as being to religious and dirty in the camps, feeling as though she was not  part of that society. Also, she recalls times in the camp where she could see those same people that she once looked down upon outside the barbed wire  fences riding by paying no attention/ turning a blind eye to what was actually happening behind the camps. In her letter to Magda, we could see exactly why Rosa wasn't able to let go of the past. With her social status before her entry into the concentration camps, Rosa could only think to herself "why her". As she said, she didn't think that she was the same as the rest of the people in the camp. Not considering herself jewish, feeling as though she didn't belong and also seeing these other people as "lesser" then her were all the reasons to why the camp took such a toll on her. At the same time, this was the reason that Rosa was able to move on. She realized after writing this note that the same reason she felt she was better then the people in the camp was the same reason that the Nazi soldiers put her into the camp. They looked down on her, felt as though she wasn't equal to their status. After writing this letter to Magda and realizing all that, she came to realization that the people in the camp were just like her, that for the reasons she felt she didn't belong were the same reasons that she did belong. Also, she realized that for her to be mad because of her once acclaimed status would only be making her the same as the people who put her into the camps.

The Shawl: From Beginning to End

      A seen from the beginning of the novel, the Shawl represented a sense of life and preservation of life to Magda, Rosa's daughter. It was her keepsake, the thing that kept her quit and satisfied. Also, the Shawl was a protector of Magda. It was used to protect her from the harm of the Nazi soldiers during the time of the march, and was used as a comforting protector against the cruelness of the camps. After Magda was killed in the camp by being thrown against the fence, the shawl acted as only a memory of her life for Rosa. By the end of the second story, the Shawl lost all its importance. As Rosa began to move on, the shawls began to mean less and less. Instead of it being something that was bright and vibrant filled with life, it became dull and quiet. The meaning that it once had diminished by the end of the novel.  When she opened up the box which held the shawl, it was said that it looked dull and didn't automatically give Rosa the power of Magda to come alive. Instead it took a while for the feeling of Magda to come to life from the shawl. This began to show the death of the shawl and the moving on by Rosa from the past to the future now. For the first time since the Holocaust, Rosa wasn't able to recall the thought and life of Magda immediately form the shawl. It had lost most of its power by this point but not because the shawl was old or dull, it was because now Rosa was ready to move on. She had an internal reckoning that helped her to be able to move on. Before this, Rosa turned her phone back on, which also showed her want to connect with the outside world, as we discussed in class. We could  clearly see from this last section of the novel that Rosa was ready to move on and making changes in the direction. The shawl, representing her past, lost life but everything in her present gained life. She turned her phone back on, met with Mr. Persky and even took time out to call Stella. After Rosa wrote the letter to Magda explaining her past, she had a boulder lifted off her shoulders and was able to move on which was signified by the statement of the phone ringing, Mr. Persky coming up and Magda fading away.

The Shawl

Throughout the stories we have read in this class we have seen many different types of people go through many different hardships in life. From growing up in a poverty stricken area to being placed into a camp because they are different from everyone else, we have seen all sides. In the story, The Shawl,  we see three Jewish women who are about to be taken into a concentration camp during the time of the Nazi rise. It isn't blatantly expressed that these characters are Jewish but the subtle hints of the symbols Nazis used to separate and tag these people are shown. The title, The Shawl, represents a deeper meaning then what is seen in the word "shawl" as have all the other stories read in the class. the webster dictionary defines a shawl as a piece of fabric worn by women over the shoulder or head or wrapped around a baby. By the definition we see what the shawl can represent in the story, and the importance of it. By definition it can be a piece of fabric used to cover a baby which is important and signifies comfort, warmth and care. The Shawl in the story represents the same idea of a piece of comfort in these desperate times of much needed comfort. One of the women, Rosa, has an infant which she loves dearly. As any parent would, she puts her daughter, Magda, in front of any and everything she has or wants during these times. The shawl is a material object in the book which Rosa gives to her daughter to give her a sense of comfort. Instead of Magda showing emotion when she felt sad, hungry, or uncomfortable she would go back to the shawl in which her mother gave her. Even when she felt times of hunger or thirst she would go to the shawl and suck on that to get satisfaction instead of shedding tears. Overall, the shawl represented a crucial aspect to Rosa and Magda's relationship and also a crucial aspect to the story as a whole within the Holocaust. It represented, in the story, the sense of home and comfort that these people were stripped of when being brought to these camps because of their beliefs.

Devine Emperor: Minimalist?

In the case of When the Emperor Was Devine, the author would not be considered a minimalist. The tone of the novel follows the plot of the book. The way the author approaches the writing is more of a poetic view to the writing by expressing the feelings of the actions written throughout the words in the words and the arrangement of the story. For example, at the store with Joe Lundy in the beginning of the story, the tone of the conversation the women had with him was kind of mellow and sad. It was like the tone of the writing expressed the tone of the conversation and the situation. By reading what was going on you could feel the tension like you were in the room. The author, Otsuka, uses this  style in her writing of this novel to express the feelings of what is really going on. When you read the novel, there is a weary feeling like a feeling of overcast and mist among the situation in the novel. The feeling that something is being hidden or that their are some underlying events that aren't just blatantly put in the readers face. In the case of the U.S government, this is true. That feeling is given to all the citizens of the U.S when it comes to WWII and the things that happened during the war. Its like the facts are hidden somewhere deep in a vault which everyone knows is there but pretends to act like it doesn't exist. For the purposes of the story and what was supposed to be told, the voice of the novel was perfect. Otsuka is a minimalist in this instance because if she wasn't muting the fact of the story then the reader wouldn't be able to get the feelings that the characters have in the novel. The way she wrote the novel gives the reader that feeling that the main characters also have. In a way the tone of the story helps to get the reader to relate to the characters, which in this case, is hard because most of us "readers" wouldn't be able to place ourselves into their shoes. 

When the Emperor Was Devine

During the times or World War II Japanese Americans were one of the groups that were highly discriminated against. The American government sent all Japanese Americans to internment camps claiming that they were "protecting" them from the rest of the country. Trying to hide face that we had done something wrong, america left most of these fat out of the history books. Many students have no idea exactly what happened to the Japanese americans during World War II, or have even heard about these people being put into these camps. America, being a super power didn't want to be seen as this country who  did these things that other countries had done. We portray ourselves in America as the worlds savior,  or the worlds super hero. Anytime something happens in another country we are right there to help, but in the case of our own country help isn't there and we try to cover up the wrong doings that occur. America has been in shame of this fact that we discriminated against our own people blocking them off from the rest. A new age racism placed together by fear of what could happen or the worst case scenario of Japanese spies taking information and relaying it back to the Japanese government. Even within the first chapter of this novel, we can see all those facts come out in the scene with Joe Lundy in the store. Instead of acknowledging the fact that the japanese women was going to be placed in and internment camp because of his government, he tried to sway away from that fact by giving the women something for free as if that would be a nice gesture before she left for the camp. Also, we could see that the japanese family was just a regular Japanese-American family. They had their patriotic flags and also her victory garden shovel, showing that they were a patriotic american family like all others.

Socities Failure's

As we spoke upon in class, the systems set in place to help women and people like Precious failed in the case of this story. Every system from the school system down to the social system failed Precious by the fact that no one truly helped her. As we seen, even her family support system had failed her. If it wasn't for one person stepping up to the plate an reminding Precious that she was someone, and was important the mindset for Precious would have remained the same. We see this in many communities around the world, and it isn't just the urban communities like Precious's either. In my small town of Norwich Ct, the same situation occurs. Many families who aren't able to afford the necessities are stuck in a bind of using the services given to them by society. In most cases, these services aren't anywhere near the services that money could buy. Insurance policies, housing, even Wick given by the state or society are usual the lowest of all possibilities. For example, in the cases of food stamps and public housing these people are put into the low income areas where the people in that area are just like them and also areas where the facilities are barely livable. In the cases of wick checks, given to families who cant afford the essentials for their children, the products they are able to get are only limited. Certain cereals and juices are the only products the families are able to get for free. Most stores make the wick check holders get the cheapest products in the store. Insurance policies work the same way. Just like in the movie John Q., the man held people in the hospital hostage because he wasn't able to get his son the surgery he needed. This was due to the fact that his insurance policy did not cover the surgery but if he had money to be afford a better policy then the surgery would have been done right on the spot. Society is run based off money, and as you grow older you realize how true that fact really is. Society, in general, failed Precious based off the fact that she didn't have money and the place she lived. The fact of the matter is that the more money you have the better life you can live in the United States. It is wrong and injustice and also is the complete opposite ideal of the U.S constitution but it is the facts.

Abuse, Power and Survival

         The themes Sapphire gives in this novel show the affects and causes of power, abuse and survival. Through the story of precious's life we see each of these themes to the extreme. From a young age being abused made Precious become a strong but vulnerable person. As we could see in her normal conversations with people, the abuse made her into a defensive person. When someone tried to even just talk to her she put up her guard and became defensive.Even in school Precious become defensive with her peers and teachers. The abuse lead to her not knowing what "caring" was. She became accustomed to what was surrounding her and took the abuse as an everyday life situation. Not only was it the physical abuse which she seen but also the abuse in form of neglect. Through the novel, there was only one person that believed in Precious and wanted to help. Every other character in her life just passed her on to the next person as though they weren't her problem. This lead to Precious being ignorant to the fact that there were people out there who may have cared and could have helped. Instead she lived up to the expectations that people set for her instead of expectations she set for herself. One positive that came from her abuse was the power she had to be a strong women. Taking all that beating and abuse lead Precious down the path to power, and empowerment. Eventually by the end of the novel, she learned through the help of other to take that strength she gained from the abuse and turn it into power to move on. Regardless of what happened in her life, she was still strong even though she wasn't knowledgable about her surroundings and what was going on. These two themes together in the novel lead to the third theme of survival. With the abuse she endured throughout her life making her a stronger more powerful woman she was able to survive in a world where no one cared to help her succeed. These three themes together play as the background for Precious's life and struggle from becoming a weak, dependent individual onto a strong willed independent mother.

Graphic Novel vs. Novel

      The novel Fun Home has been unique in comparison to the other novel read in class. The difference isn't in the lessons taught throughout the book or the underlying messages giving to the reader the true difference is in the layout of the novel. Alison's use of the graphic novel in this stories case was completely necessary to accomplish her goal. Many pictures throughout the novel showed the seriousness and captured the reader by giving them a snapshot or several snapshots of that one moment in time.  A huge aspect of this novel is the fact of secrets that are hidden between the lines of something larger. The layout of the graphic novel is the same also by showing some hidden meaning in the pictures. As we discussed in class, the characters in the pictures didn't show too much emotion. Also, the pictures gave a hint as to the secrets which the author was speaking of throughout the words of the novel. The pictures gave meeting point between the thoughts of the reader and the words of the book. In the case of the mother, absence was seen. In the words she wasn't expressed to much, even in the graphics of the novel this is seen. The mother is absent in most of the pictures within the novels. Without the graphics in this novel the author wouldn't have been able to give the reader the tools they need to realize exactly what was going on. The graphics in this novel were completely necessary to get the message Allison wanted to send out to her readers. Sometimes, in novels, the words overwhelm the reader by taking their attention off the plot and onto figuring out what the words really mean. In the case of Fun Home, the pictures helped to make a visual image in the readers head as well as the image given by the words. Instead of spending time trying to decipher the word, the reader can focus more on the plot by taking the graphics and the minimal words together to create a overall image of what is truly happening.

Gender Identification

Alison, in the novel, grows up in a small town in which she described as a provincial hamlet. This meant that it was a really small town where most the community members contained the same views. Many members of the community she lived in possessed the same views of society and how people should be, but throughout the novel we see that Alison's family does not follow this "provincial" point of view. With her father having some gender identity issues, her mother being resigned and off in the background, and also herself having some gender identity issues, we can see that they did not fit in with their societies views of how life should be. Helen (the mother) was not very present throughout the novel, she is barely spoken of. Alison has a greater connection to her father then her mother which could be a reason behind why she has some gender identity problems throughout the novel. When a women doesn't have that connection with her mother it can cause some distance between their feminine side. on the other hand, Alison's father almost forced her to become a "feminine" women instead of the person she wanted to be.  He would tell her what to wear and that she had to wear the certain things and act a certain way because she was a girl.  This definitely contributed to the gender identification difficulty that Alison faced. Also, with her mom not being in the picture as much as she should, Alison was never really able to have that feminine connection with her. As we can see, throughout the novel Alison really only has good connections with her masculine side being her brothers and her father. No other women in her life were really spoken upon, which is some of the reason in which she has the gender identification issues and is almost a direct resemblance of what her father has been going through over the course of the story.

      In Alison Bechdel's novel, Fun Home, Alison touches up on some key life changing factors and also some situations that readers may be able to connect with. The story revolves around the relation ship between Alison (or the main character) and her father. One of the most important parts of the novel was when Alison began to become suspicious about her fathers sexuality. This picture is one of the illustrations from the novel which explains one of the situations where Alison began to have suspicions of her father. As you can see in this comic strip, Alison sees her father putting on bronzer. This is where she begins to question his sexuality. Eventually, Alison's father comes out to her and tells her that he truly was a homosexual. She finds out that the man she thought was one of her fathers "friends" was really one of the men he was having an affair with. We find out at age nineteen that Alison her self was also attracted to the same sex. After reading this section in the book i began to question what was going on. Is Alison truly homosexual or is it just a phase? Maybe it was just something that was in her from the beginning? With Alison's father coming out the closet and explaining to her that he was homosexual gave Alison a comfortability with the face the homosexuality was perfectly fine. Even before she 100 percent knew that her father was that way, she witnessed some things that may have or may not have been signs. These signs, subconsciously had a part to Alison's acceptance to her also liking the same sex.  After Alison found herself she was more comfortable with the fact that this homosexuality could be accepted by her father because it is already something he also feels and understands.  

By the end of the story by Julia, you can see that each character had changed in some way. The novel begins with a simple family story by each girl of their childhood. As the story goes on and the plot begins to unfold, each sister moves into their own future path. We are introduced to them as a "family" showing how each one was in the sense a little bit different but the same in some characteristics also. Fro example. at the beginning all of the sisters possessed some of the same attributes. They were all strong and came off as "family oriented"people. As the story began to unfold and the true meaning as to why the family was in the Dominican Republic came to the open, we began to really see who each character was. In the case of Minerva and Mate, they both were on the same path with more of a following form Mate. But, as the revolution began to become important to each of them, Mate followed a different path. For Minerva and Mate, the revolution changed them. Becoming so consumed in changing the future of the country caused both of these sisters to change drastically throughout the story. Minerva always had the fight in her as we could see from the first chapters. She came off as a outspoken, persistent person who was very strong. As she began to become more intertwined with the resolution, these attributes came out even more. Instead of sticking to her traditional religious views she stepped out the box and stayed persistent and strong for something she believed in. Also, the revolution made a drastic change on Minerva's love life. Before the revolution Minerva was not to interested int eh man she ended up marrying but after she grew a love for the revolution she began to grow a love for him.  Mate has the most drastic changes in character because she went from being so immature and innocent into a grown, understanding, and strong young women.

Mate 1960: La Victoria

During times in prison, Mate was an influential figure for her peers. In the Mate section of 1960, Alaverez speaks on how Mate was able to smuggle a notebook into the prison she was being held in. In this notebook she was able to write her thoughts and also the lessons which she would teach her students in the classes and discussions they held daily. In these meetings Mate along with her peer women political's, told the other women that  they must, "Never believe them. Never fear them. Never ask them anything." These three sayings were the three rules that the women went by. The "them" in which Mate spoke of were the people of dictator Trujillo. Throughout this chapter, Mates strength is shown in multiple ways with the women she speaks to and the bold moves she makes. These three rules which the women stayed true to were the three golden rules that helped to keep the secret society she was trying to build together. These three rules helped to keep these women true to what they believed in. Trujillo would try to tell the what he wanted and brain wash their thoughts so that they to would follow his rule and become disciplined to his ideas. If these women were to give in and not follow these three rules the hope for them would be lost and forgotten as they struggled to keep their faith. As a character, we watch Mate grow from being a young innocent girl into a very secure strong willed person able to show others her ideas and whats right as opposed to what dictator Trujillo wanted the prisoners to think or the country as a whole to believe. As a class, when we first began to read the book and took notes on each character we started that Mate was young, innocent, spoiled and eager to please but here we see her growing up and becoming  a women that posses some of the character traits of each of her sisters, but mostly following the traits of Miner

Stepping into their Shoes

         Each character in Julia Alvarez's story give a different dynamic to the legend being told.  From the beginning four chapters of the story, we are introduced to the family of the narrator. Each family member contributed to taking the reader beyond the story, by giving each person a voice. In each chapter, the main character changes and we get to see the life or a story through that one characters eyes. Also, within the case of the family characters, each one had a different personality but contain some of the same attributes showing that they are too related. With each character, she expresses the things they do in great detail which gives the reader a view of what is going on. She goes in depth about each character, such as the father. She speaks on him drinking, but never says that he is drunk but that she head the sound of the glass rum bottles clanking against each other. Without the characters of the story, Alvarez wouldn't be able to give the full effect of the story and also she most likely wouldn't be able to tell it. The thoughts of the people involved and her family give her a sense of peace at mind when she's telling the story. At the beginning, it is apparent that she is tired of telling the legend every year or month at the same time. She must mentally prepare herself to tell the story the way people want to hear it. So, with each of these characters being so dynamic and containing such a huge role in the story it makes it much easier on her. She does accomplish the goal of using the characters to take us beyond the legend and into the legend. As a reader we can somewhat relate or place ourselves in the shoes of the characters and at times close our eyes to visualize the events and situations they go through. The characters give the story a personality in which the reader can and must relate.

I Am An Emotional Creature: Women's Sixth Sense

"I am an emotional creature, Things do not come to me as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas. . ." In this poem, I Am An Emotional Creature, Eve Ensler gives the thoughts of young women as they are passing from childhood into adult hood. From a mans perspective, women are very emotional in most aspects of life. When something goes wrong, right or in between it is easy to see what they are feeling. Many people assume that women just aren't very strong with their emotions. But when it comes down to the facts women truly are. Unlike men, women have a sort of "sixth sense" and can see and feel things men cant.

I love being a girl.

I can feel what you're feeling

as you're feeling it inside

the feeling

before.

Stemming from the true emotions and thoughts, women are able to connect with these strong emotions and feel what others are feeling. Reading this poem made me realize that this is true. Looking back into my life and my experiences with women, i could see that this does happen. In funerals, you see women crying a lot more often. In some cases it is because of the loss of the person but for the ones who didn't really know that person personally, they still have those emotions and shed tears because they feel the same pain as other around them. Looking even further into my experiences with women, I could notice times when they have the "sixth sense." Many people call this sixth sense the "motherly instincts" which only women can posses. When i was younger, my mother would be able to tell when i was feeling down or what i was doing without me ever saying anything. It was the motherly instincts that kept her able to know my well being before i could even get a chance to explain how i felt and what it was. These "senses" stem from the strong emotions of the women in which Eve speaks about int his poem. 

Underlying Facts

"The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise." This fact  found in Woman: An Intimate Geography, by Natalie tells more then just the fact behind the vagina. Eve Ensler put power and meaning behind the fact when she said "who need a handgun when you have a semiautomatic." For women all over the world, this has to be very empowering and moving. Women posses twice the power of men even though men have been seen in society and portrayed in society as the "dominant" ones, women still posses the most power. As crazy as it seems to hear, most women don't realize that the world revolves around them. As much as men try to claim that they are dominant or better then women the truth is that everything men do revolves around the women. This comes back to the anatomy of humans: male or female. With the female clitoris containing twice the amount of nerves as the mans penis, it would be a direct correlation between the importance of women and men in society. Women carry children, and are the only way to reproduce. A man needs a women for most things in life or some guidance from a woman. When its all said and done, anything a man does can be traced back to a women.  The want for a job that pays well, the need for a nice car or clothing, at the end it all comes down to the want and need for a woman.

Vagina Monologues: A Women's Comfort

As much as i felt out of place reading these monologues, after a certain point i couldn't put them down. Page after page my interest grew stronger and stronger. Stories of women and their struggles, how they felt about themselves, what it took to become a confident person in their own sexuality kept me reading on. Before reading this book, i had no clue what women thought about themselves or how they dealt with many things. Speaking honestly, i thought that women were very emotional because that was just the way things were. But just like men, women have a lot of built up emotions inside that they don't get to release especially when it comes to their sexual well being. As a man, i know that satisfaction sexually can come from many places. We have confidence in our body parts and are able to openly talk and express our thoughts, but for women true satisfaction only comes from the comfortability with themselves and their sexual organs. Women are not able to speak as freely about themselves as men and also aren't comfortable with themselves. As Eave said in her monologues, many women have never even seen their own body to the fullest. In the monologue, The Flood, Eve talks to an older women who is seventy-two. She explains her story about how she felt so uncomfortable with the fact that she had an orgasm and the way the male reacted to it that she never used her vagina. He was turned off by the fact that she did this in his car and all the attributes that come with an orgasm. The smell, the look and the feeling of the orgasm kept her away. She claimed that she thought of her vagina as a "cellar" or "basement". It was something that belonged but wasn't used much. From a mans perspective, we would never think of our penis in this way. Society has made it acceptable for men to be proud of their penises and women to be secretive of their vaginas. In the forewords, Eve speaks about the symbol for hearts and how it was once used in some cultures as a symbol for female genitalia. Now, the symbol has changed from a sexual symbol to a romantic one giving the heart a lesser meaning. In the end, this shows how much women have been degraded throughout time.

Vagina Monologues: Prethoughts

Eve Ensler uses the reproductive organ, the Vagina, to explain more then just a part of the body in her drama The Vagina Monologues. This part of the female body is used in her drama to express in great detail the struggles of a women and what they must go through. For this drama, Eve takes the word "vagina" once thought of as only a sex object and gave it more meaning to the women who posses one and also her male readers. In the drama, the "vagina" is personified. In the title of one monologue, the vagina is personified by the title, I was Twelve my Mother Slapped Me. The Me, in this monologue, is the vagina which has been hit with its first menstrual cycle. The monologue have caused much controversy between different beliefs and views on females. In another monologue Eve talks about one woman's sexual experiences and the traumatic consequences of the experience. From reading the titles and subtitles of the monologues it is easy to see that Eve used the vagina as a way to show women and represent women as a whole. The lifestyle of a women, how they live and also how they think. In connection to the books we have read so far in class, Eve is giving more of an insight into a "women's world". By personifying vagina and giving it some human characteristics by asking questions of what a vagina would wear, it is easier for the reader to relate to the vagina. By raising these questions she makes the reader place themselves in the shoes of the vagina in the monologues and feel the pain of it along with women. These monologues act as a dairy for women and the struggles they face in life.

Krik Krak: Night Women

There are many things people do in order to secure the need of their family. In the story, Night Women, this is shown. In the story the mother, is a prostitute who does her business right next to her sleeping son in his bed. In order to keep her sons views safe, she has set excuses or plans for if he were to ever wake up, and also as to why she gets herself made up every night before bedtime. She tells him that she gets "made up" because she is waiting for the angels to come at night. The mother also says that if he wakes up and see then actions going on she would tell him that is was just his father visiting for the night. At this young age, the boy may not know any better but as he gets older he will put two and two together and make sense of what has been going on throughout his whole childhood. This is something that the mother is concerned about but being a prostitute to make money is something she must do. Are the mothers actions take a little to far in order to secure a decent life for her child? Are her actions acceptable in order to be able to put food on the table or is it just down right wrong? In the mothers eyes, she feels that these lies will save her son, at least while he is young, from knowing the real situation and what really had to go down in order for him to be able to live a stable life. From the boys perspective, if he was ever to wake up while his mother was in the be with another man, she would tell him it was his father. From a young age he would believe that this man who he woke up to one night having sex with his mother was his father. This would kill the boy inside as he grew up and became more sexually active realizing what his mother was and the fact that this man he seen was in deed not his father. Even though these little lies the mother used were to save him in the beginning, once the boy grew older, it would kill him as reality hit. For the mother, she took this sacrifice, but imagine if you were a parent. Imagine if you had no other means to support your family besides prostitution or robbery. What would you do? Save him now for the moment or let him know the truth and the struggle you go through?

Experience Creates Wisdom

Many people feel that to have wisdom or to posses some sense of knowledge about the world around you, intelligence is involved. As shown in the poem, My Grandmother and the Stars, that is not true. Wisdom, as defined in the webster dictionary is accumulated philosophic or scientific learning. Wisdom is knowledge gathered through experiences. As described in the poem, Naomi's grandmother was a wise nurturing person with a lot of wisdom/ knowledge of the world around her. Even though she was illiterate, she was still able to be wise. It wasn't through the books she picked up and read or the stories she sat down and wrote but through the life experiences she gained. This relates directly to people today and society today. As children grow up and become men and women life's experiences change. As we grow older most of us learn how to cope or deal with certain situations. This is the knowledge that creates wisdom, but some don't get a chance to experience this. Your lifestyle, what you go through, see or hear are all parts of wisdom. Many can pick up a book, read the information and regurgitate it but at the end of the day when faced with a real life problem, they are not able to handle it. When a person is stuck only knowing their own environment and never experiencing anything out of there norm it is hard for them to gain real life knowledge about what is around them. This happens to college students everyday. When some sheltered students are taken out of there norm and placed into a college setting where everything has changed and so different from what they know it is hard to cope. They begin to get  involved with the wrong things are wrong ideas. When another student who has been introduced to these differences and has met adversity plenty of times throughout their lifetime enters a college setting where everything is now new it is a lot easier for them to deal with the adversity.

Humanity In American Society: What have our voices really done for us?

    Naomi Shihab Nye's, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, makes some interesting connections between the gazelle and humans or mankind as a whole.  She begins the poem with a very detailed picture of the gazelle in there natural habitat. Then she begins to ask a question to the reader."Does one gazelle prefer another of her kind"? This question sprung to me as something directly relating to mankind and if we as people do the same thing. Does one human perfer another of its kind? Is that the same reason why we usually see differences in people instead of similarities first? Just like the gazelle, maybe the preferences we have are stemmed from our natural instincts. Naomi uses the gazelle as a parallel between the natural and mankind.                            

Where is the path?

Please Tell Me? 

Does a gazelle have a path? 

Is the whole air the path of the gazelle? 

Human beings have voices-

What have they done for us?

    Within these two stanzas the natural vs. mankind is prevalent. As humans, we tend to find ourselves following a path of what is right or what is expected of us. Any situation in life can change our appeal, make us sway one way or another. These situations can even make us change our own path. As for the gazelle, they just float along. In their world there is no wrong or right. In the minds of these animals things are just done. There path is decided by nature, not thoughts or community pressure steering them where or where not to go. The decisions of these animals are purely instinct. As humans we use our voices and thoughts to either steer ourselves or help steer others. Opinions, media, and society help to shape who we are and where we are going. For the people in my own generation this is even more true. We begin to get away from the natural and more to what is "hot" or "trendy" at the time. This can be seen even in the highest of education at universities or colleges where students are attending school not because they have the urge or inspiration to learn but because there friends are doing it or because society tells them its the right thing to do. We do have voices and opinions, but in actuality what have those opinions really done for us?

What Happens To A Dream Deferred by: Langston Hughs

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?