What experiences define women’s lives? What is celebrated, lamented, vented in anger?

Throughout the course we have traversed a wide variety of life experiences. Most of the women in the novels we have discussed have gone through tragedy, heartache, and struggles. The most important theme in all of them is that the strength to go on and conquer their demons was inside them. In Krik Krak, we got a glimpse of many different women’s lives, and each one of them had to work through problems and overcome adversity on their own, because no one else was going to help them but themselves. This is a very important theme, not only in this book but in reality. The ability to carry on despite all the odds against us is a quality that makes women great. It doesn’t matter what the hardship, women are able to see a problem and find a solution. That is one thing that should be celebrated.

I think another theme in the novels of this course is the feeling of helplessness. Especially in the book Push, there is an overwhelming feeling of distress. Precious was born into an awful situation, with abusive parents and no one to help her. The inspiring part about this story is that Precious was able to pick herself up and try to create a better life for herself and her son. This theme is echoed in book Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. In this book, Dorothy Allison struggles through childhood feeling insecure. She was unable to find herself, and sometimes that is the most helpless feeling any woman can feel.

I think that most women hate the roles that are forced upon them. In Butterflies the Mariposa sisters rejected the fear and submission that was thrusted upon them by the Dictator Truijillo, and in Dede’s case by her very own husband. In Fun Home, Allison rejected the norms that her father tried to impress upon her, just as her father rejected those placed on him by her. I think that all women resent having people put forth images of what they’re supposed to be, and all women want to be able to create their own image, their own picture of themselves. And all women should be able to find that within themselves.

Why do you think that Ozick chose to include such a small segment of story representing the Holocaust experience compared to a much longer, drawn out version of Rosa's life in Florida? How does the form here mirror the content?

I think that Ozick chose to format the two sections this way in order to simulate real life. In all actuality, the holocaust only lasted about four years, which when compared to the length of a human life span wasn't a huge chunk of time. I mean, think about it, 4 years out of 80 is only 5% of someone's life. So when she wrote the first section of the book, she wanted to reflect that the holocaust was really only the blink of an eye. It also shows how quickly the holocaust came and went. People were living normal lives, and in the span of only four years they had their possessions, their humanity, their families, everything stripped away from them. In the span of only four years. That’s extremely powerful. It’s also frightening that the Nazi party was able to commit such atrocities, and that they condensed it into such a small time frame.

I think Ozick decided to make the story about Rosa’s life after the holocaust so much longer because in all actuality, the rest of her life in years vastly outnumbers the years she spent in the camps. It also reflects the fact that even though she escaped from the camps, she is still in some ways living through it, every day in her life after the holocaust. It shows that all people, after surviving a tragic event have a difficult time readapting to everyday life. They have post traumatic stress disorder and other mental problems. Just because they physically survived the event doesn’t meant that they are mentally all still there.

 I think it is a very tragic story to ponder on, the fact that Rosa was so strong, and so determined to survive, and when she does she ends up emotionally and mentally broken. The fact that she ends up with a successful business and yet she won’t allow herself to forget what happened to her during her short time in the holocaust camps. It’s also sad that she resents Stella for being able to move on with her life during the aftermath of the situation.  However, I believe that Stella must also be suffering similar hardships. While she is dealing with the pain of the memories much better, I think she still must have flashbacks like Rosa, I’m sure she still has nightmares about what happened. I think that it isn’t fair of Rosa to assume that because Stella has been able to create a new life for herself, that she has completely forgotten what happened to them back in Europe.

When The Emperor Was Divine

After reading When the Emperor Was Divine, I was left with many unanswered questions. Why did the author choose to leave the characters nameless? What actually happened to the father while he was in jail? Was it really necessary to kill White Dog? Why doesn’t the mother tell the children what’s actually going on? I read the book a second time, and then a third time, and still the answers to these questions both eluded me and smacked me in the face.

Why are the characters nameless? Because the family is supposed to represent an entire nameless community. Because the family is supposed to represent thousands of nameless individuals that were shipped off to internment camps at the request of the United States Government. Because the family was slowly stripped of its identity, slowly stripped of what makes it unique, slowly stripped of what makes it personal.

Why did the mother kill White Dog? Why did she let the bird go? Was it an act of compassion? Of desperation?  She killed the dog in order to be compassionate. She didn’t want the dog to suffer. She didn’t want her children to worry about the dog. She didn’t want to worry about the dog. She let the bird go so he could be free. She let the bird go so that he could fly away and take care of himself. She had to tie up loose ends and make sure everything was taken care of before she left for the train.

 After reading this novel, there were too many unanswered questions. Too many hidden meanings withing the subtle details of the paragraphs. There were too many ways to interpret events and yet not enough definitive proof. 

I definitely enjoyed the writing style.

Butterflies

Why does Trujillo kill the sisters even though they’re no longer directly involved
in the revolution? Were the women victims, martyrs, heroes, or something else?

Trujillo first had the sisters imprisoned, in order to try to break their will. He wanted to make them suffer, and he knew that throwing them in jail away from their children would be the ultimate torture for these women. After the investigations into the welfare of the prisoners, Trujillo released the women from prison as a ‘gesture of good will’. The problem was that Trujillo didn’t actually have any good will towards anyway, he clearly had ulterior motives. He further tries to break the women by separating the husbands, thereby separating the sisters because they couldn’t make visits to see them in jail together. Mate and Minerva, I believe, were the bigger threats to Trujillo, and that’s why he sent their husbands to the new jail on top of the mountain. He especially wanted to get back at Minerva after she refused to be his mistress, and I believe that’s why he set up the murder on the mountain. I don’t think that Patria was a part of the original murder scheme, just a happy surprise for Trujillo when he found out that she was also in the car.

I think that these women were definitely martyrs for their cause, and for their country. It could be argued that if not for the death of the butterflies, the revolution and the assignation of Trujillo might not have been as successful. People’s outrage at the blatant murder of three beautiful women, three caring wives and mothers, at the hands of El Jefe must have been an extremely hard pill to swallow. I’m sure that it caused many people who were on the fence about getting involved choose sides, probably sides that were against Trujillo. So, while the deaths of the three sisters were tragic and unnecessary, the strong feelings that their deaths invoked in the people of the Dominican Republic probably saved the nation.

Dede's Time Line

Dede’s Time Line

Born: 1925

1938

·         Dede goes to school with her two older sisters, Minerva and Patria

1943

·         Family gathering underneath the large tree in the front yard

·         Father tells Dede’s fortune- predicts that she is going to be a millionaire that buries the whole family

·         Dede interprets this after as an omen for the beginning of the end

1948

·         Dede and Minerva meet Lio when he and his cousin visits them at their father’s store

·         Once Lio has to flee the country, he trust Dede with a note for Minerva. Dede decides not to give Minerva the note in order to ‘save’ her

·         Dede gets engaged and married to Jaimito

1950

·         The businesses that Dede starts with her husband fail, this includes a restaurant and an ice cream parlor

·         Presumably she has at least one child by this point

1954

·         Money being tight after the failed business ventures, Dede and her family move into her childhood home

·         At least two children by this point

·         Problems between the couple start arising

1960

·         Dede’s sisters ask if they can bury weapons on their property, Jaimito says no, and this starts Dede’s indecision about what was going to happen to her

·         Dede’s sister’s husbands are all arrested, Jaimito is the only one who was spared (he wasn’t involved in any revolutionary planning)

·         Jaimito takes care of the sisters after their husbands were taken

·         Dede and Jaimito petition to get the three sisters back after they were taken away by the government

1994

·         Dede lives in family home

·         Runs museum dedicated to her sisters

·         Participates in the ‘yearly interviews’

·         She’s still involved with her nieces and nephews

Character Analysis- Dede; Chapter One

Bird of Paradise

 

Dede’s character within the first chapter is a complicated one. She is full of sorrow, resentment, guilt, and confusion. The entry of Dede was one of her trimming her bird of paradise of its dead branches, and this imagery definitely has significance. Dede wants to be rid of her own dead branches, be done with the burdens that she has had since the death of her three sisters. She wants to be done with all of the interviews, let go of the grief that came with being the only surviving sister.

One big aspect of Dede’s personality is the way that she feels the need to oblige everyone around her. In the beginning of the chapter, you can tell that she feels obligated to answer the interview questions every November 25, she feels obligated to show people around the house, make finger sandwiches and snacks, and basically put up with people poking around her life every year. At the end of the chapter you find out that she also feels obligated to take care of her father after he’s drank too much, she feels obligated to help out with the store and anything else that is asked of her. In a nutshell, Dede is the helper, the ‘I will give you the shirt off of my back” kind of person.

I’m focusing on this aspect of her personality because I oftentimes find myself in the same situation. It’s a very tough spot to be in when you feel like you can’t say no to a person. Being a pushover is physically and emotionally draining, and at the same time, it hurts even more to say no to people. I can relate to Dede in the respect that it’s difficult being the go to girl for everyone, especially when no one considers that you might need help too sometimes.

I am an Emotional Creature- Blog One

After reading I am an Emotional Creature I have to admit that I was pretty let down. After reading the Vagina Monologues by Ensler, I kind of expected more from her. This book was a far cry from its predecessor, and while I can appreciate that they aren’t meant to be the same, I feel as if Ensler fell flat here.

One of my first issues with Emotional Creature is that it seemed rather contrived. You could tell that she was trying to promote self confidence, safe sex and abstinence, and being emotional, but the way that she tried to put it forth through the text came across to me as trying too hard.

Another big issue for me was how it was a monologue-poem hybrid. The flow of the different stories was off for me, and I had a hard time getting images of what was going on throughout the different passages. An example would be in the ‘Moving towards the Hoop’ story. It was really chaotic, and I think it was because she was trying to portray the girl’s inner monologue as chaotic, but the execution left something to be desired.