FINAL BLOG POST

Walking into women’s literature I wasn’t sure of what to expect. I had some stereotypical views as did I am sure most of the class. I though that this class was going to be about women empowerment and well, feminism. Ii was way wrong. This course talked about way more then women. This course brought up the issue of the struggles between yourself and society. This course I believe related to finding you. All the books had one central theme in common, the struggle between society and yourself. Precious from push had to overcome stereotypes and what every teacher though or assumed about her, Rosa had to overcome her past, each of the Maribel sisters had to essentially hide from society what they truly were. Each book related to this theme of struggle. This course dealt a lot with the human emotion and the internal struggles inside one self. Eve Ensler talked a lot about this struggle. In all three works we encountered this course Eve used this as her central theme. In The Vagina Monologues, Eve tried to use an uncomfortable subject, vaginas, to try and prove her point. Eve showed us that as a society women are looked down upon. The Vagina Monologues was all about taking back the word vagina and empowering ourselves to stand up for ourselves and not play into society, and to love your vagina. The final movie we watched was so moving. In the movie Eve followed women as they went through prison. In this movie I discovered that there was a lot more to each of these women then their crimes. This goes back to the theme of the class, we labeled each one of these women by the crimes that put them into jail but by seeing how each of the women interacted with Eve made me see past their crimes and into themselves. The title of this class I believe is like the title of one of the books we read. I labeled this class when I first walked in as a women’s study class, after the course however I learned that there was tons more to the class then just learning about women in history. I took so much out of this course and the main thing was not to let society influence what I think of others as well as not let society label me. This course allowed me to see how people’s backgrounds influenced them such as Allison in Fun Home, Precious in Push, and Rosa in The Shawl.  Women’s studies left me with many valuable lessons about society and myself and I believe it is so important to take these lessons and relate them to my life because it will make me more aware of others emotions. This course can be related to men as well as women. This course is about society as a hole.  Women’s study is so important to learn about people and their emotions, this course showed me that fist impressions are not always right and that where you come from doesn’t designate where you are going. In Two or three things that I know for sure we see how Dorothy is struggling to get through life and to not let her family define her. Dorothy forged her h=own path and we see that it defiantly wasn’t easy for her, but she made it through and she was so much happier as a result. Precious showed us all that we can defy the odds and by having one person believe in you it will make all the difference in the world. Having that one person believe in Precious allowed her to go on and get an education. Coming to terms with your past was a major part of The Shawl. Rosa had to overcome what happened to her in the concentration camps to be able to move on with her life. Rosa had to relive her past as well as understand it to be able to move on. Although our past is very important it doesn’t not define us and one needs to understand their past before they move on with their future. 

Dorothy Allison post

Two or Three Things I know for sure was a very relatable book in many ways. This book was all about Dorothy Allison coming of age and growing up and discovering who she was. I enjoyed seeing the difference in attitude between the beginning of the book as well as the end. Also in the novel towards the end of the book you can see a transformation in photographs. In the picture of aunt dot and the mother sitting on the steps you notice how miserable they were and how they almost look to tired or fed up to keep going on throughout the day, they looked as if they had nothing to live for. I feel that this is crucial to Dorothy’s growing up. Dorothy must have had it rough, she was trying to create a different path from the rest of your family and that is really hard. By the end of the novel you see Dorothy in a picture with her partner and their family. I feel as though this picture is a complete different representation of family. This picture Dorothy looks genuinely happy. I feel as though everything Dorothy did in her life is so her and her family could live differently. I feel as though Dorothy wanted to beat the odds and not do what everyone else in her family expects her too. I think that Dorothy had expectations for herself when not many people did. I think this relates directly to Push by Sapphire. In Push precious had to defeat the odds in the same way as Dorothy. The major difference between Precious and Dorothy is that Dorothy had expectations from herself and not her family and precious had no expectations from anyone other then Ms Rain. I think that having expectations within yourself dictates where you want to go, if you have no expectations you will stay where you are but if you want something you have to go for it and fight because it you don’t fight for something that you want no one else will.  “Two or three things that I know for sure, and one of them is how long it takes to learn to love yourself, how long it took me, how much love I need now.” Self love and giving yourself the love you deserve is a big step for everyone to learn because having this self love/worth allows you to fight for what you want, and this is what allowed Dorothy to live the life she wanted to live.

Two or three things i know for sure

I really enjoy the photos in the book two or Three Things I know for Sure. I think the pictures help tell the story of her life just by looking at them. Ever since I was younger I always believed a picture could tell you everything that you want to know. I think that throughout the book with each picture you saw a new part of Dorothy’s life. You see her growing up as a hopeful child and then throughout the years you see how her facial expressions as well as her wardrobe change a lot as her life progresses.  I also thing the “two or three things I know for sure” sections tell a lot about Dorothy’s philosophies.  “Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, the stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world. I think that this is the main purpose of Dorothy Allison’s book. I believe she told the story to instill leasons upon the rest of the world. I believe she wanted everyone to see that her life wasn’t easy. “Two or three things I know for sure.” I believe is an idea Dorothy Allison wanted to show her readers that she only know two or three things but when she knew them she knew them and she wanted to share her knowledge with the world not only to tell her story but to  change other people. This autobiography is very relatable in many ways. This book allows you to relate to family, hardships, good times, as well as bad times this book shows you that, like Dorothy, you can go against the odds and against society. “Two or three things that I know for sure, and one of them is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.”

THE SHAWL

Reading “The Shawl” put the word survivor into a whole new perspective for me. Rosa demonstrated that being a survivor was as much of a positive thing as people think it was. I think that Rosa had it harder than the non survivors. Every day Rosa had to live with regret and hatred and she tortured herself. Rosa lost everything in the concentration camps her family, Magda, and her relationship with Stella. Through all of that loss she also lost herself. I don’t think people think enough about the after affect of surviving such traumatic events.

I believe that the study Stella made Rosa partake in was degrading and horrible for Rosa. I think Stella only had selfish reasons. Stella wanted Rosa to stop blaming her for the death of Magda. I think looking back at her experience at the concentration camps would be a valuable thing for Rosa. I think that Rosa needs to confront her past head on and also she needs to take all of her internalized anger and tell others about it she needs to talk to release all of her repressed feelings.

I am very confused by the ending of the novella. After Rosa saw the shawl again Rosa had all of these visions with Magda. Ozick made it seem like as soon as Rosa saw the shawl Magda came alive. I believe that seeing the shawl again brought back memories for Rosa and helped her cope. I think that coping has a lot to do with surviving and having to learn how to live when everything is gone is also very important.  

The shawl

I believe that Rosa is slowly losing her mind. I feel as though Rosa is so mentally disturbed and broken from her time at the concentration camp. I feel like Rosa internalizes everything. Rosa feels like she doesn’t have a family Stella betrayed her and Magda is dead. I believe that it is obvious Rosa is slowly losing her mind. From the minute Magda died Rosa was emotionally and mentally broken. Rosa couldn’t even let anyone see her cry, for fear she would die. Rosa used the blanket as security to hide herself from showing pain. Rosa hides in her ”motel” and never settles down into a real home. I feel that Rosa thinks she doesn’t deserve a good life. I think Rosa is not only guilty but she is also losing her mind. Rosa holds things inside so much that eventually she just snaps like in the antique shop. I also believe that Rosa began to write letters to Magda to help deal with her grief but at the same time eventually she will think she is still alive because when you psychologically tell yourself something over and over again eventually you will believe it. The only outside contact that Rosa had really with the outside world is a man named Mr. Persky. Mr. Persky is a button maker. “If you’re alone too much, you think too much” Mr. Persky stated on pg. 27. This quote was said after their first meeting when he offered to walk her home. I feel as though this quote speaks for itself in Rosas case. I think this is exactly what Rosa needed to hear because she thinks too much about her “old” life and needs to think about the presence and needs to get away from the grief and the sorrow. Rosa needs someone to listen to her and talk to her and I think a lot of her problems will be resolved.

the shawl

Reading the beginning of “The Shawl” was heart wrenching. To hear the reality of what people actually went through during the concentration camps is surreal. I think its awful how malnourished the prisoners were in the camps. Rosa couldn’t even produce enough milk to feed her baby Magda. In the beginning of the book we see a vivid picture of Rosa and how food deprived she was and how she is giving any source of food or nutrients to Magda. Ozick describes Rosa’s knees as tumors on sticks and she also she described her as “someone who is already a floating angel.” Hearing the descriptions of what went on in the concentration camps is so scary and sad and it really hits home for me and a lot of people I know because we all have had family that had relatives or knew someone in the concentration camps.

I think that it is interesting how the novella started off with such vivid descriptions of what was going on in the concentration camps. I think this defiantly drew me into the book and made me want to closely read and to paint the vivid descriptions of Rosa, Magda, and Stella. I got sort of confused after the first chapter when it went into Rosa’s chapter. In Rosa’s chapter it started off with Rosa smashing up her own store and moving to Miami. I am confused about how she ended up where she is now. I believe that is important that we see that Rosa writes letters in English to Stella. I am not sure as to why she is writing in English when she and Stella were both Polish. I think Rosa defiantly has dramatic affects from the concentration camps such as reciting her name in “application form”. I think the reason she destroyed her store comes from post dramatic stress. There is no way one can go to a concentration camp and not be affected for life.

Otsuka post 2

I believe that Otsuka used vague names throughout the novel for many diffrent reasons. I believe that in the novel using "women" "boy" and "girl" it gave off the epression that everyone thinks lower of the Japenese in American Society. I feel that this could symbolize that American's thought the Japanese were all the same, and they all had bad motives. By not giving them names it showed a lack of identity which I feel that all of them feltt in the internment camps. The japensese were all singled out because of their race not becuase of anything else.
I also feel that Otsuka could have used generalities to make the story not only towards this one family but also towards the Japanese race in general. I feel that by using generalities it makes the book more relatable to others. Also I think that by making the book one big generality it takes away the connection between the characters and the author. I feel as if the author did not want to tell a story of her family or people she knew, I feel that she told this story for all affected by the internment camps to relate to. I feel that this is one of the only pieces of literature about the internment camps that i have ever heard of and Otsuka wanted to speak for the whole race to show that they all wen throught a similar tragedy.