Deconstruction

I am really glad we discussed deconstruction in class yesterday. I have never written a paper using this method, so we shall see how well (or not well) I do. I think I'm going to write about the binary of imprisonment and freedom in "Story of an Hour." I think there are some great example, for instance she feels free when she is next to the window, yet as soon as she goes back down the staircase (stairs, surrounded by a case? A case is like a prison...hmmm) and it is after she leaves her window that she becomes back to being imprisoned. She sees her husband and her whole new outlook has been shattered.She then escapes imprisonment, this time by way of death. Dr. Hollingsworth did a great job explaining it yesterday, and my ENG 205 book gives some tips on deconstruction papers. I'll be looking for a few more binaries to throw in too.

Chopin - Symbols in "Story of an Hour"

What a well written story to say it mildly. There is so much to unpack from this story. Like her story "Ripe Figs," it is short in length but not in content. "Blue sky" and "delicious" are words used to describe the things around here when she is looking out the window. They help the reader see that she sees good things ahead, and do a great job of relaying her emotion. I like the subtle hints that pass along an emotion that Louise feels. Like all of Chopin's stories, there are so many symbols, enough it would seem that if you read it everyday you would find more than the day before.

I meant to post this last week...as well - Professions for Women

I loved this article by Virginia Woolf. I idea of killing the Angel in the house is so wonderful, and I have honestly been thinking differently since reading it. I have always had this "wild and crazy" feminist streak running through my veins, but it is flourishing lately. When I watch television and I see a woman tell her husband to leave so she can do housework I scream and bitch at the poor thing, saying "Are you seriously going to live up to what your genetics and the historians tell you to do?" You are genetically a woman, and because of this you are going to do what is typically asked or expected of a woman? My poor boyfriend..bless his soul for loving me, but I am on his tail lately. Two nights ago I couldn't sleep, and I woke him up to ask him when it all started and how. How did women become inferior? Why were we ever suppressed? And so on. He talked to me and I talked to him...He's a great guy, and agrees with me when I talk about women being oppressed. He knows there is still a problem with even today's society and how it views women, especially wherever the media is concerned. I give him my opinion and he gives me his. I sure am not ready to sleep now, so I turn on the television and yell even more at the media for portraying women as "BOOBS." Women = BOOBS. Go to hell. What's with that? At any rate, I just wanted to thank Virginia Woolf for her article, and for killing the Angel in the house. I have killed the Angel in mine as well :)

Meant to submit this last week - Chopin

I was really excited to learn that we get to write a paper about Chopin. I know that it is not one of the stories linked on this page, but one of my favorite Chopin stories is "Ripe Figs." It has so much to delve into, especially considering how short it is. We have a girl who is maturing, and an older woman who has already done so. I think this story does a fantastic job with symbolism: The ripe fig being the girl who has matured, and is in the early stages of adulthood, and the knife in which the older woman uses to cut the fig. The knife I fell, represents man, and is symbolic of how they two will come together at another time now that she has matured, be it in a romantic way, or a sad way (he will hurt her and break her heart perhaps?) Regardless of how the knife symbolizes man, it is a symbol and it is put to work nicely in this short but fantastic piece. Just thought it was cool how symbolism IS the story here...nice.

Today's Group Project

During the group presentations today, Jada brought up a very point. She talked about how the house is seen as a feminine place because it shelters women. She also made a reference to a drawer and how it does the same thing. She went on to talk about how women have a womb, and that is, in a sense, home. A womb houses a baby. I thought about this a lot and realized that no matter what a woman does, she will have this house inside of here, always. She will always be physically a woman with something inside of her that's soul purpose is to shelter another human being. This made me a little sad, as well as claustrophobic because I know that I will always have this thing in me that makes me susceptible to oppression. Damn it! I do not dislike children by any means, this has nothing to do with that. I am just uncomfortable with the fact that my body is meant to house a human baby...Yeah it's weird to think about it that way. I love my Mom! Without wombs, no one would be here, so I'm not anti-womb. Gosh, I guess I don't have a point. I'm fine with being a girl, I just wish that gender wasn't an issue in today's world. It shouldn't be, but it is. Again, I love my Mom and all people and all things, and I do understand that no womb equals no people. I just wanted to make that clear :) I know somebody has to do it, I just wish that people with wombs (women) weren't viewed as weak because they have a womb. Yeah, I like that statement, I think that's my point.

Simone de Beauvoir and My Angst

It is not the actual male authors Simone de Beauvoir mentions in her piece “Myths” that are the point; it is the fact that their ideas are oppressing, even though they did not realize it. These men feel that they are doing women a favor by saying lovely, nice, pretty things about them, such as Stendhal. He felt that women could do MORE things than men, sounds good right? Nope. What he goes on to say that women can do and men cannot is open their hearts and create a shelter: essentially be more oppressed. He does not do women a favor what so ever with this statement. He may as well have said that "women can do things men can not, and that’s scrub floors really really well, and cook very good spaghetti. I mean, I can sort of do these things, it's just that women do it better." Why couldn't he have just said that men and women are equal or something along those lines? He's not breaking any stereotypes by saying that women can open their hearts, so what is the point him saying it? To make women feel better? Thanks Stendhal, I can rest well now that I know that there is at least one thing I can do that a man cannot, and that is create shelter. (I'm being sarcastic by the way...)

Montherlant – We know he is a transcendent from our text. He is obviously an antifeminist author, and finds great pleasure is findings ways that men are greater that women. What was interesting to me was that he would purposely and consciously put women in a place lower than he, and then relish the fact that he was superior. Montherlant’s cycle of novels he wrote entitled “The Girls” involves a man who is adored and admired by women, yet he is always rejecting them. It speaks out against feminine possessiveness as well as for male dominance.

Breton – Felt the exact opposite of Montherlant. He felt that women brought peace. He feels that women tear him from his subjectivity. He was very interested in eliminating the differences between dream and reality, subject and object, sanity and insanity.

Stendhal – Simone de Beauvoir felt that Stendhal was distinctive in demonstrating the understanding his women as actual human creatures who are like men. He felt that they were destined for mediocrity because they were female. He feels that there are some things that women can do that men can not, one being the fact that she can open her heart to him and shelter him.

Claudel – Claudel viewed women as “soul-sisters” and felt that they should give as much as men do in terms of love, and they should be just as devotional. He seems to feel that women are a possibility for either salvation or temptation. He is one of the least arrogant out of the many authors she discusses.

Poem - Discourse on the Logic of Language

When I first looked at this poem as it was being handed out in class, I honestly couldn't imagine how much could be gotten out of it. Turns out that the meaning lies greatly in it being read aloud. I enjoyed hearing Dr. Hollingsworth read this piece aloud because she did it without messing up once. It seems like one of those poems that if it is read aloud wrong then it could loose most of it's impact. But because she read it very well, it kept all of it's impact. I can see how this poem would sound fantastic if it were read aloud by a group of people. I was hoping that we could all read it aloud as a class but i was too shy to make such a suggestion. The whole poem reminds me the free-writing exercise. Most words resemble the others, and they are common in meaning. I felt that this poem was a great piece to discuss on Thursday, because it went so well with out free-writing discussion. Very cool poem, and I would like to hear a group read it sometime.

Free-Write - In Class

I had a lot of fun doing the free write in class on Thursday. I liked taking a word, "Woman" in our case, and writing words that came to mind for a couple of minutes. It was neat to see what everyone else said their last word was, and to see how they correlate with everyone else's in class. The last word on my exercise was "angry." A few other people had an emotion as their last word and I found this interesting. I liked the other exercises that appeared on the worksheet we discussed in class, especially the one where you have someone read to you a pretty scene and then you are given a box and it is to your discretion what is inside. Very cool packet of exercises to get ya thinking.