Seeing the Vagina Monologues preformed and reading it was two completely different experiences. I feel that the Monologues needs to be preformed to be affective. I got so much more out of watching Eve Ensler perform then I did reading. There was so much emotion in the performance and I feel that I read it differently then what I heard. I read “The Flood” as a very sad and emotional story from an elder woman, but hearing it I heard a funny and bit sarcastic story. Eve is defiantly the only person that knows how the interviews went because she personally saw the women and had a one on one conversation with them.  Seeing the Monologues preformed gave me the emotion in the story and showed me how the story was supposed to be depicted and not how I interpreted it. Since I was able to hear and see the Vagina Monologues performed it made it more relatable because Eve told the story behind the women and gave some background information allowing us to really see that the monologues are from real women and they are people just like you and me.

The Vagina Monologues gave me an unexpected outlook on life. It made me realize that I should be more comfortable with myself and embrace who I am. I get uncomfortable talking about my sex life as well as my body; I just don’t like doing it. To read this book and see all the other women who are either uncomfortable or comfortable or curious about their body is enlightening.

While reading this book many people gave me different reactions. A lot of people knew what the vagina monologues was and a lot didn’t. I, myself was uncomfortable by just hearing the title. The book is very relatable to everyone even if you are a boy. This book is about embracing yourself and your body.  I personally would never be able to be interviewed for the monologues because I would be very uncomfortable. I have a hard time embracing myself and my sexuality because it is not the social norm. Society makes me uncomfortable with myself. Society teaches people not to be ok to embrace yourself and always wants you to make yourself better and not be happy with yourself as you are.

I don’t think that this book is not only about feminism I believe that it is about embracing you for you.

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Audience reaction is crucial to Ensler’s overall project. Why? Why won’t she allow us to simply read without having a reaction, whether positive or negative? Why do you think she wants to push us out of our comfort zones? Which monologues resonate most strongly (positively or negatively) with you and why?

Ensler loves the reactions to her monologues. Ensler wrote the “Vagina Monologues” as a screenplay originally. If we read this piece of work just to read it we would get nothing out of it. I feel as though every writer should write with the purpose of getting a reaction out of their readers. By having a reaction to the piece of writing it not only gives the audience entertainment, but it also makes the reader stop to think about what they are reading. Ensler kept me captivated throughout the monologues because it never got boring. By being entertained I was able to think about the pieces more and to form analyses on it.

Ensler constantly put the audience out of their comfort zone. I feel like she wanted us to become uncomfortable because that is the whole point of the monologues. In “The vagina workshop” the main character was uncomfortable when she first went. The main character didn’t understand how all of these women could draw all of these creative pictures of their vagina, and she also couldn’t figure out how to find her clitoris. The teacher of the workshop told her “she told me my clitoris was not something could lose. It was me, the essence of me.” In this monologue she was very uncomfortable with herself but the more she was pushed out of her comfort level, the more she embraced the essence of herself.

The monologue that stuck out to me was “hair.” The story is not just about a women’s husband wanting to shave her vagina, and cheating on her as a result of not shaving. To me this monologue was about doing what makes you happy. The message I got from this monologue is to do what you want and to not give in to anyone one else. The women gave in and let her husband shave her vagina because she thought he would become loyal. The husband never became loyal. This story made me realize that you should do what you feel comfortable with because in the end you are the only one that needs to be happy with yourself. This story gave me a negative, but truthful outlook on society.

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The genre of this piece of literature is drama, meaning that Ensler wrote these monologues to be performed. Why do you think she wants vaginas to be publicly performed? Why does she want vaginas to be physically embodied? What effect does this have on the way we see and think of vaginas?

I believe Ensler wrote the vagina monologues to spread awareness. Ensler wrote this play to empower women. In the forward I became very aware of the reason she wrote this novel. The forward opened my eyes to make me realize that women are afraid and even sometimes ashamed when it comes to the word vagina. “I learned that females possessed the only organ in the human body with no function other than to feel pleasure. (If such an organ were unique to the male body, can you imagine how much we would hear about it-and what it would be used to justify). This quote made me realize that if men had this organ they would embrace it and even go around bragging about it. I think this play was read and publically performed to allow women to take back their dignity and to love all parts of themselves even their vagina no matter how it is.  “Vagina” is a word that is used in jokes all the time as well as many slang terms for it. “Symbolic or real, it’s all devoted to controlling the power that resides in the female body” Ensler wants us to embrace our body and know that everyone is embarrassed or ashamed about the vagina, and that shouldn’t be because that is not right it is a part of us and that is not fair. “I wish my foremothers had known their bodies were sacred. With the help of outrageous voices and honest words like those in this book, I believe the grandmothers, mothers, and daughters of the future will heal their selves- and mend the world.” I think with awareness we can take back the embarrassment and with awareness we can also empower ourselves to not be afraid to use the word “vagina”.

Krik?Krak! Post 2

I believe that throughout Krik? Krak! The sense of hope vs. hopelessness is present.  I feel like hope is a dangerous thing sometimes. I feel like hope is dangerous because it is never guaranteed. No matter how hard you try you cannot change fate, whether it is how your son will grow up, such as in “A wall of fire rising” or hoping your child’s innocence is not lost, like in “Children of the Sea”. I think hope is the most prevalent theme in Krik?Krak! In each of the short stories Danticat gives an ending that is hopeful or hopeless. Depending how you read the story and interpret the characters each story means a different thing for everyone. The one thing that all the stories have in common is all narrarators are young haittian women coming from essentially nothing. I feel like all these women have hope that things will eventually get better but in the end a feeling of hopelessness overcomes them all.  This hope is a coping mechanism in all the stories. Like in life hope is always a way to escape. Hope is creating a better reality for yourself. Being so hopeful gives you the illusion that eventually everything, will one day get better. I feel like in the stories parents try to maintain their children’s innocence so they would always have hope. Looking at the reality of your life is difficult especially when you come from nothing, and it is very easy to escape reality and tell yourself that one day things will change. I feel once children’s innocence is lost, so is all hope, for not only the child but also the parent.

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Preserving innocence is a huge role in Krik? Krak! As discussed in class in “Children of the Sea” the female readers’ innocence is trying to be preserved by her over protective father. In “Night Women” innocence is also a huge role. In “Night Women” a mother trying to protect the innocence of her son. In the story the mother is a prostitute. The mother has her clients come to the house at night while her son is asleep.  The mother dresses up at night waiting for her clients and when the son asks why, the mother says she is dressing up for an angel. I think that the mother is really embarrassed of what she does. She is very worried that one day her son will find out when he get older. I think that the mother is hiding so much from her son because she doesn’t want him to grow up faster than he has to. The mother even has a plan if the son ever sees her; she will say that it is his father. I also think she is trying to protect him about the reality of his father as well. This story demonstrates the desperate lengths a mother would go to for her son. In order to give her son a good life the mother is essentially ruining her own. I don’t completely understand this theme of giving up everything you have for your child; I don’t think anyone can understand it until they have a child of their own. This example of love is so unconditional and it shows the strong bond between parents and their children. Parents are always trying to give their child better then what they had and they will go to any length to give it to them. I think that the angel in this story is a symbol of the child’s innocence. As long as the child still believes that there is a fairy he will never know the truth about his mother.

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I believe “Blood” has a lot to do with Nye and her roots. In this poem I feel as though she doesn’t know what a “true Arab” is. I think in this poem Nye doesn’t exactly know how to incorporate her “true Arab” roots into her life. As the years went on tragedies continued (ex. The war over Jerusalem) and the true Arab didn’t exactly know what a true Arab was anymore. I feel as though Nye is having an identity crisis and she doesn’t know exactly how to act. I believe this can be incorporated a lot with in society today. Today many people struggle with incorporating their lives and ideals with their beliefs. I think this poem is very versatile because not only can it be about an Arab, it can also be about a Christian or someone of the Jewish religion. Every religion has is scrutinized for their own believes. I think this poem has a lot to do with Nye finding herself and her own beliefs.

Like Nye’s father in the poem “Blood” a lot of old world people cannot relate to what is going on in present day. There is so much scrutiny and hatred towards religion and culture and general ways of life that is different now. What we are used to now, our ancestors wouldn’t even be able to fathom it. Like in the poem Nye’s father says the news is too much for him.  

I think that this poem is a lot about the evolution of religion as well as incorporating religion into society. People have a difficult time seeing that people are different, whether it is their culture, religion, or way of life. Overcoming that barrier society puts up is hard. I think it is very hard to fully disclose yourself now a day because there is so much hatred in the world. The world is not an accepting place. People commit hate crimes all of the time for no reason other than your race or your religion.  I believe in this poem Nye has a hard time becoming a true Arab because she sees that becoming a true Arab is hard in the present times due to hatred and society.

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In the poem Jerusalem Nye stated “I’m not interested in who suffered the most. I’m interested in people getting over it.” This line is meaningful to me in my life and I think it is interesting because it is very relatable to life. A lot of times I feel as though people believe they have it so hard and they do not take the time to stop and think about anyone else. I see this a lot in today’s society. People walk around and say how hard their life is but they don’t stop and think about how much worse off half the world is. People, including myself, make things out to be these big productions but in all reality, in a week it will be nothing. This line in this poem makes me realize how incredibly selfish society is these days. With this simple statement a lot is put into perspective for me. A lot of times people are always interested to know someone’s problems or flaws, but what we all should be worrying about is getting over those hard times in our lives.

I also think this poem has a lot to do with finding a solution to our problems. “Each carries a tender spot: something our lives forgot to give us. A man builds a house and says, “I am native now.”A woman speaks to a tree in place of her son. And olives come. A child’s poem says, I don’t like wars, they end up with monuments.”He’s painting a bird with wings wide enough to cover two roofs at once.” These are all examples, to me, in the poem of finding a solution. Each one of the characters in the poem is faced with a problem that caused them to suffer, and not only did Nye demonstrate how they suffered she also showed how each character overcame their obstacle. The father in the poem was hit with a rock and now he will never have any hair where he was hurt. The solution to this problem was that he showed up back at his house with pears on his door step. Finding the pairs demonstrated to me, that although something bad may happen in your life, something better will come along to put your life into perspective and make you realize that it could be worse. “…Something always has a next” means to me that no matter how bad something is something better is always going to come next.