Friday, December 14, 2007
Too Much
When do you stop giving
Purple
Queen honeybee
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Burning of the Picture
--Sara Eslami
Sofia
--Sara Eslami
Chicano Spanish / Linguistic Terrorism
Text: „But Chicano Spanish is a borer tongue which developed naturally‰
(pg. 55)
Is the creation of a clash between two worlds. One of which encompasses
the Spanish language which represent her heritage, culture, history. Then
the addition of her new world the realism of the Anglo language and
culture. Growing from this is an individual with dual identity. With
neither Spanish nor English to fully express their individuality, a
language that can relate to both worlds is necessary. From this arises
Chicano Spanish.
Terminology: Linguistic Terrorism
The explanation is the use of Language either Spanish or English used
against people from the same group. How language can be used as a tool of
oppression within a circle of individuals that identify of a particular
shared group. Within these groups there is no absolute language but a
variation.
- Lleana Contreras
Sunday, December 9, 2007
North White Plains
- Amber Boateng
Okeh Records
-Max Latman
Double Telling
-Max Latman
Pocketbook
Jerome Johnson - "Jay"
Juan Contreras
“Promise me you will never marry!”
Leslie Bowen
Legba
Leslie Bowen
Enryo and Gaman
Leslie Bowen
Abuelita’s house in The Moths
Leslie Bowen
Allegory in Woman Hollering Creek
The name Cleofilas is the name of a Mexican martyr, which is significant because the woman in this story is beaten, and suffers from subordinating herself to the patriarchal system. She does not even try to fight back. When she decides to leave Juan Pedro in the end, it is almost as though she is experiencing a rebirth and becoming a new person.
Juan Pedro’s name fits into the allegory, because his name is so commonplace and could be anyone. It is like the English equivalent of ‘John Doe’, and in being so generic he represents male values in general, as well as the patriarchal system.
The two ladies who live on either side of Cleofilas are named Dolores and Soledad, or sorrow and loneliness. These names suit the women perfectly; both women live alone, and suffer because of the men in their lives. One woman lost her husband and children in the war, and the other lady will not even discuss her husband who has been long gone. They represent women who have become hurt from the patriarchal system, and who accept it even though they are suffering.
Felice and Graciela, the ‘comadres’ of Cleofilas, also represent their names well. Felice, or Feliz, is translated as ‘happy’ in English, and Graciela refers to grace. These two women help Cleofilas escape from the abuses of Juan Pedro. They are also figures of strength, and represent independent women. Felice discloses to Cleofilas that she owns the truck she is driving, and that she is unmarried. While passing the Gritona Creek, she hollers and whoops, showing Cleofilas that women have alternatives to living in abuse and sadness, and may claim a life for themselves.
-- Ashley Smith
Avey's Voyages
When Avey sees the Emanuel CC, which Lebert Joseph has convinced her to ride on the expedition, she is shocked. The boat is old, tattered, and beaten up and can barely hold all of the people loaded into it. It had been on many expeditions and seemed about ready to fall apart. The Emanuel CC represents Avey’s voyage to the island, where she got in touch with some African roots and accepted and delighted in them. The boat is very old and beaten up, but still works and many people chose to take the same one they had for years. The name Emanuel is significant because of its biblical roots, and symbolizes a type of salvation and enlightenment for Avey. Avey abandons the Bianca Pride, or her whiteness, and takes a journey of faith on the Emanuel CC to the island, where she becomes acquainted with her roots and culture, and learns to participate in it and accept it.
--Ashley Smith
This passage is from “The Moths’ by Helena Maria Viramontes. The young narrator describes her father’s reaction to her refusal to attend mass on Sunday. Apa is violent and he allows his fists to speak. He uses profanity and physical abuse to express his rage and his daughter is the object of his abuse. Since the narrator symbolizes the struggle for identity as an individual in general, she also represents the struggle for religious identity. She comfortable in Abuelita’s house, which represents everything grounded in nature, rather that in the chapel. Apa symbolizes Spanish Catholic fathers. He represents the brutality of conversion of the indigenous population to Catholicism. Apa wants his daughter to submit to his command. But young woman find no comfort or God in the chapel, “I was alone. I knew why I had never returned”.
Inna
Felice
Juan Contreras
Voice in The Woman Warrior
Wendy Tu
Sister's Choice
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Celie's Razor in Hand
Tyson Ramirez
Ibos on the Landing
Tyson Ramirez
Hands
Tiffany Noojin
Iconicgraphically
Trans-Migration
Queen Honeybee
Wendy Tu
Moths
Tiffany Noojin
Corandera
Rosie
Tiffany Noojin
17 syllables
Tiffany Noojin
Bildungsroman
-Cecilia Luppi
Quilts
Tiffany Noojin
Juan Pedro
Jacob Erickson
The Color Purple
Tiffany Noojin
"Colors" in the Color Purple
Cecilia Luppi
Ghosts
Ghosts are a recurring motif in the memoir, Woman Warrior. Author, Maxine Kingston tells the story of how her mother informs her of the ghosts she encounters. Ghosts are symbolic because they serve as a contrasting idea of the identification of ghosts. Although Kingston’s mother refers to ghosts as frightening spirits that creates turbulence to humans, she also considers Americans to be ghosts. It becomes contradictory that she recognizes Americans as ghosts considering that the Chinese people living in America are the ones living with concealment. This relates to women writers through the internalization of females. Ghosts have a correlation with the way female interact in society – as they remain submissive, they are similar to the ghosts.
Donald Ung
Chicano
Jacob Erickson
Jay Johnson
Stephanie Lestelle
Jerome Johnson
Stephanie Lestelle
Women Silence
In Maxine Kingston’s, Woman Warrior women silence is a recurring theme that impacts the main protagonist, Kingston as a youth. She is told to not tell anyone about her No Name Aunt. In addition, parts of her tongue is also cut off by her mother in order for her to speak more lucidly in a foreign surrounding, however, as a teenager, Kingston believes her mother cuts it for precisely the opposite reasons. In addition, growing up as a Chinese American, her parent directs her to remain secretive to her teachers and the Americans around her, which exhibits another form of silence. The theme of silence is significant to the course of women writers because women writers have the contrary incentives as they speak up to society through their writings. As for Kingston, writer becomes a form of defying society’s conventional values of women remaining silent.
Donald Ung
Language in "How to Tame..."
Jacob Erickson
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to establish r
This quote from the memoir, Woman Warrior is from the author, Maxine Kingston. Kingston is referring to the stories on ghosts and the cautionary story on her No Name Aunt. There stories serves as warning and empowering tools for the future. The story on her No Name Aunt is to prevent Kingston from evoking shame to her family – specifically the actions of adultery. In addition, the ghost stories serve as an empowering story that represents Kingston’s mother, Brave Orchid as a woman warrior. Through her audacious attitude, Brave Orchid would literally fight ghosts and protect the harmless – which is the babies in the hospital and the medical school students. The quote is significant to women writers because it demonstrates the profound impact and empowerment of motherhood as Brave Orchid exhibits to her daughter the effectiveness of storytelling.
Donald Ung
Tabula Rasa
--Rachel Robles
White Tiger
In Maxine Kingston’s Woman Warrior, the chapter “White Tiger” tells the story of a fictional woman warrior named, Fa Mu Lan. Kingston portrays her own depiction of the character through narration. In the story, she compares her modern-day self with the fictional swordswoman and affirms that they relate significantly. As the swordswoman effects the world through her sword, Kingston impacts her world as a female through the narrations of her words. In comparison of the legend of Fa Mu Lan as a swordsman, Kingston identifies as a wordswoman. This is significant to women writers because it illustrates the depths females internalize in a society dominated by males. In the story, Fa Mu Lan juggles several profound responsibilities such in society – specifically a mother, wife, and daughter. Consequently, this chapter epitomizes the massively potential strengths of females.
Donald Ung
Avatara
She now symbolizes what she had always feared to become, yet what she needed to be most.
Pocketbook
The pocketbook is also a large symbol of the white culture which she has assimilated into along with Jay, as the Ebo most certainly did not carry such items.
--Rachel Robles
Praise Songs
Jenny Saenz
Great Aunt Cuney in Praisesong for the Widow
In Praisesong for the Widow, Avey's Great Aunt Cuney represents the African heritage that Avey and Jay turn away from in order to attain white middle-class prosperity. Her Aunt Cuney is the one who, on trips to Tatem in her childhood, told Avey the story of the Ibos who walked on water back to Africa rather than become enslaved. Aunt Cuney shows up in Avey's dreams, beckoning her back to a cognizance of the richness of Avey's family history and heritage. Cuney becomes a catalyst to Avey's great change, as the dream prompts Avey to leave the Bianca Pride and eventually leads her to Carriacou to take part in the excursion. Also representative of Avey's past heritage is Jay's love for the blues and gospel, which marked the early days of their marriage with fullness, joy, and passionate love--things they sacrificed for prosperity.
La Llorona in "Women Hollering Creek"
Amber Bissell
Quilts in The Color Purple
In The Color Purple, Celie and other female characters work quilts. Quilting is symbolic in the novel of drawing things together, of stitching together "pieces" of one's life as one sews pieces of fabric together--when Celie and Sofia sit down to quilt together, the pattern is called "Sister's Choice," emphasizing female choice in life: appropriately, the two women quilt together after Sofia explains to Celie why she won't consent to be beaten by Harpo. Also, when Celie and Shug quilt together, they use fabric from Shug's old yellow dress along with Celie's fabric scraps--this metaphorical binding of the two women's lives together in a quilt signifies their eventual importance to each other, as Shug later says to Celie after they visit her father's grave, "We each other's people now."
Quilting also represents a free kind of creativity that enriches Celie's individuality, along with the later pants business.
..."although endings are inevitable, they are necessary for rebirths"
Amber Bissell
La Llorona
Apa in "The Moths"
Apa in "The Moths" represents forced catholicism and the Spanish father's of the church through his violence and profanity. He is associated with nails, fists, whippings and the chapel in which he forces the young narrator to go. The chapel is constrained, empty, lonely, and cold which are metaphors for him. He is constraining her by his cruelty just as the entombment of the chapel does by inert isolation. He is abusive and is the reason Ama cannot attend to her own mother when she is dying. He represents the opposite of Mama Luna, which is the reason Ama sends her daughter to her grandmothers. She hopes her daughter will learn from Mama Luna as she did not and escape the cycle of marrying another Apa.
Talk Story in "No Name Woman"
The talk story refers to the mother's cautionary tale to Maxine about her "no name aunt". It is an abrupt story only told out of necessity to prevent Maxine from bestowing the same shame her aunt brought upon the family. The overall purpose is to prevent pregnancy out of a scare tactic, not to repeat a history of lineage. The talk story doesnt explore motives like Maxine's more literary interpretation of the tale. The mother's story is apathetic in tone and indifferent to the character she is addressing. It is emotionless because it is being told to fullfil a purpose.
How To Tame A Wild Tongue
Samantha Sears
17 Syllables
Samantha Sears
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Here Shug is telling Celie what she believes about God and religion. Shug is a big part of Celies life. She is the one that helped Celie grow and mature into a strong woman that has control over her life. Throughout the novel Celie writes her journals to God. Celie’s image of this God is the typical white, male God created by the church. In this passage Shug challenges this image of God. She rejects God as being a white, male and gives Celie a different view on God and religion. Shug believes God is inside people therefore God becomes more human and closer to them rather than the distant God religion preaches to people. This lesson of spirituality is important for Celie to learn because it changes her view on what God really is. It brings God closer to her because now she knows she doesn’t have to think of God as a male, God becomes an “it”. A sort of energy or force that exists inside everyone and everything.
Magda Pena
The moths by Helena Maria Viramontes
Here the grandmother has died and the girl is preparing to clean her. Throughout the story there is a juxtaposition between religion and curanderismo. The girl thinks that chapels are cold lonely places to which she doesn’t connect. In her grandmothers house she finds a connection to nature and the wisdom her grandmother is imparting to her. In this quote there are some strange words. When she says “modest” bleached towels it is suggesting that even this can be sacred enough to be involved in a ritual between the girl and her now dead grandmother. The comparison of the girl to a priest is almost heretic because the girl doesn’t believe in religion or what it represents. This simple act of preparing towels is likened to a religious ritual meaning that there is a sort of sacredness in everything the girl does. Even she can be compared to a priest which is the connection between God and the masses.
Magda Pena
This is an excerpt from a discussion between Shug and Celie in Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple”. The discussion is on the concept of God and men. Shug who thought these issues through is sharing her views with Celie who through her life experiences game to resent God and men. As Celie contemplates what Shug said, she is starting to realize that in order to see things clearly she would have to disregard men she had known in her life and men in general. When Celie compares “a little scrub of a bush” against Mr.______’s evil, the evil shrinks. This is a representation of what is natural or in nature against man’s constructs. “Man corrupt everything. He try to make you think he everywhere…you think he god”. Men interpret religion, create social structures and norms, and impose their views on women. Shug urges Celie to push all of these away by looking to nature, “Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock”, and create her own ideology.
Inna
Lebert Joseph
Juan Contreras
Mr. Hayashi's outburst
Towards the end of "Seventeen Syllables," Mr. Hayashi releases his frustration and anger towards his wife on a picture. Calling out for his wife to help him and getting no response made him angry, and possibly jealous. Since Mrs. Hayashi had been entertaining Mr. Kuroda and ignoring Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Hayashi built up a rage of inadequacy and exasperation. Mr. Hayashi obviously could not compete with Mr Kuroda, nor could satisfy Mrs. Hayashi's need for intellectual stimulation. His masculinity as a Japanese man had been obstructed through Mrs. Hayashi's pursuit of haiku and haiku discussion--which deprived him of the power that men in Japanese culture long have owned. His outburst on the picture, smashing and burning it, show us how inadequate he feels to fufill Mrs. Hayashi by releasing a powerful amount of anger. What joy he shares with his wife is not comparable to the joy other people bring Mrs. Hayashi. Her dedication and interest to haiku will never be understood by Mr Hayshi, and we see the consequences of this through his outburst and destruction of the picture.
Juan Contreras
He had thrown a book. Hers. From across the room. A hot welt across the cheek."
Juan Contreras
"I always felt her gray eye on me. It made me feel, in a strange way, safe and guarded and not alone. Like God was supposed to make you feel"
Juan Contreras
Friday, December 7, 2007
The name "Rosie"
Jamie L
"I wanted to go where the moths were"
Jamie L
This item is from “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes. In this passage a young narrator is transporting the body of Abuelita from the bedroom to the bathroom for a ritual of transformation. It is a sacred ritual, “with the sacredness of a priest preparing his vestment”. The towels become vestments. The water symbolizes purification and the medium for transformation. The symbols of Catholicism are mixed with the symbols of the ritualistic indigenous ceremonies. The body as V represents the eternal feminine. For just a short moment Abuelita represents Mary. But Abuelita’s body reveals a map of a life of a different eternal feminine, “the scars on her back’ and “mapped birthmark on the fold of her buttock”. She is a goddess of nature and when lowered into the bath her soul starts preparing for transmutation, “her hair spread across water like eagle’s wings”. Her soul becomes moths and her body dissolves into nature, “the vines would crawl up her fingers and into the clouds”.
Inna
Young narrator from a short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes is asking these questions of herself. She is fourteen years old and stands at the crossroads. At this juncture, she is on the verge of becoming a woman and she has many questions. Should she give in to physically abusive father and inept mother and take on the norms of the family and accept the catholic faith. Should she give up her distinct personality and become like her sisters, “do the girl things” and maybe acquire through practice a “cute waterlike voice”. In other words, should she comform? At this point in the text as the question repeats itself over and over again, she is confused. But “the sun is defiant” and she is defiant. She wants to give to herself, to self formation and determination.
Inna
Eruptions/Implosions in Praisesong for the Widow
In Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, Avey Johnson embarks on an exploration of her suppressed and forgotten memories and cultural roots. In order to do so, however, she experiences emotional and physical 'eruptions'-- violent bodily and mental reactions to the turbulent emotional experience of revisiting her past. Essentially, 2/3rds of the novel builds up to this cathartic purging of suppressed and festering emotions and memories within Avey. To advance the metaphor of 'indigestion', Avey's upset stomach does not arise from only her 'over-gorging' of materialism and richness. The unresolved aspects of her life-- namely, her complete detachment and alienation from herself sits in her stomach like milk gone bad. The milk, her past and her identity, festers and rots within her until finally, in Ch. 6 of the third part of the book, Avey, on the schooner on the Carriacou Excursion, explodes the contents of her stomach out through her mouth-- words and ideas she has suppressed all her life, and through her bowels-- all of the undigested ideas of self-identity which she has failed to confront, explode and erupt out simultaneously, "gushing from her with such violence she might have fallen overboard." (205) This purging of her mind and body is significant because it provides a denouement to the conflicts Avey explores throughout this novel. She purges not only her physical being, but her spiritual and emotional being as well, allowing her to proceed refreshed, renewed, and cleansed of all of the self denial and the pain she has withheld inside her body and mind, leaving both open and receptive, like an empty stomach, to the new food she will encounter-- the Carriacou islands and finally, her reencounter with her Afro-Caribbean cultural roots.
"Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds"
In the chapter titled "White Tigers" in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior, Kingston explores the traditional misogynistic tendencies of the Chinese culture. Maxims like "Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds," (46) and "There is no profit in raising girls. Better to raise geese than girls," (46) hint not only at a strong cultural distrust of women, but also at the idea that bearing children and raising them is an investment-- investment of time, money, pain, and effort in exchange for the hopes of vicarious fulfillment and profit through the offspring when the 'stock' has fully matured. Kingston portrays her own rejection of such ideas by refusing to get straight A's, refusing to marry to show her, "father and mother and the nosy emigrant villagers that girls have no outward tendency," (47).
Yet Kingston can not help but wish that she could return from Berkeley as a boy so that she too, and not only her brothers could have her "parents welcome her with chickens and pigs". (47) The inability to prove herself just as worthy of love and affection and trust as her brothers is an overarching theme in the chapter. Kingston yearns to belong in her family and in the culture of her parents, yet can not find reconciliation with the misogyny and the double standards which are exhibited in every aspect of the Chinese culture. She points out that, "There is a Chinese word for 'I', which means 'slave'". (47) While her soul struggles to find peace with her ethnic and cultural roots, she finds it impossible to embrace a culture which can not embrace her gender.
This theme of the suppression and insignificance of women in the traditions of the author's ancestors is significant to the novel, as it is an overarching one, and one which recurs throughout the memoir. Kingston explores the difficulty of becoming a "woman warrior" or a "female avenger" in her own ethnic culture as well as in her environmental culture and raises the question of the probability of overcoming the difficulties faced by her existence as a female, as an ethnically Chinese individual, and as an American.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Moths
Jessica von Fremd
Folded in lip
Pamela Legge
"...yes and no and oh..."
Pamela Legge
This sentence is from Helena Maria Viramontes short story “The Moths”. These are the eyes of Abuelita. The two different colors point to the complexity of her personality. Aubeluta is a representation of many spiritual and ritualistic traditions fused together. The gray eye can be a depiction of goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom, justice, industry, and skill. Abuelita’s home was a safe heaven for her daughter from the abuse of the father. Abuelita was a skilled gardener and healer. The brown eye can be seen as a representation of the Aztec goddess of corn, Chicomecoatl, the goddess of sustenance. The eyes of Abuelita are set against the blank eyes of the marble statues in the chapel. The reference to Abuelita’s eyes and the eyes of the statues is a description of the conflict between Aztec/indigenous traditions and the imposed Catholic norms.
Inna
Hall of Mirrors
Jessica von Fremd
Hands
Jessica von Fremd
"Too much"
Jessica von Fremd
Telenovelas
Jessica von Fremd
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Peach Parfait
Jessica von Fremd
Ume Hanazono
Rebecca Cuffley
Bianca Pride
Rebecca Cuffley
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Haiku
Susan Tran
Chapel
Susan Tran
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Epistolary
The letters are also Celie's motivation to learn how to read and write. Before Nettie leaves, they promise to keep in touch with eachother by writing letters. Nettie is able to teach Celie some of what she has learned through her formal education. After Nettie leaves, Celie continues to educate herself in preparation of Nettie's correspondence. In this way, the letters inspire Celie's continuous education and development.
The letters are made up of parables. Celie's stories include religious and moral lessons, which include forgiveness and grace. The letters also document Celie's religious conversion from Christianity to a new sort of Pagan ideology.
-Elyse Rogers
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Queen Honeybee
"The Queen Honeybee" is a nickname for Shug Avery in Alice Walker's The Color Purple. The nickname shows up on an advetisement for her performance at the Lucky Star. The name is a sign of affection, and the word honey suggests that she is sweet. However, honeybees are known to have a stinger. The honeybee is a metaphor for duality of Shug's personality. She acts sweet, but Shug is shown to have bite to her personality. The queen bee's function in the hive is to reproduce. This is a comparison between the queen bee's association with fertility and Shug's stong sex drive. The honeybee is also a symbol of nature, and this supports Shug's religious ideology. Shug finds god in nature, rather than church. If god is considered "King," then Shug being called "Queen" suggests the goddess of nature.
-Elyse Rogers
cacoethes scribiendi
in 1835. It is also a state that Jo gets in when she is in her garret. While writing she
wears a pennefore and hat with a red bow. the bows location on the hat indicates her
writing mode and mood, one of which is a fury of idea and creativity or "cacoethes
scribiendi". the garret is a place where her ideas are free to manicly escape onto paper
without interruption.
Layla Bozek
Feminine power is not coercive, but persuasive.
Pickwick Club
Jennifer Truong
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Bildungsroman
-Jennifer Ngoc-Minh Pham aka JUST JENNY! =)
Voyeurism in "Incidents"
Amber Bissell
The Female Body in "Incidents"
Amber Bissell
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Objective Correlative
Amber Bissell
christmas festivities
Maggie Liu.
Trip to England
Rebecca Flick
True Christianity
Super Mom
Zamara Jimenez
Dr. Flint - The Terminator?
I guess it was his relentless pursuit of Linda that really brought the connection home to me. He just would not stop going after her no matter how long it took. His search dragged on for years with him acting as an even more insane version of Capt. Ahab.
There are other incidents, such as when Jacobs writes, "Dr. Flint and his family repeatedly tried to coax and bribe my children to tell something they had heard about me", that really hammer home this notion of him being not just a representation of the callous slaveowner but of the very force of enslavement itself (117). He does not seem to tire of the chase and will resort to any lengths, trickery or bribery for example, to retrieve what he feels is his property and what we all know is the life and liberty of a human being.
So I guess my comparison to the Terminator isn't far off because, to me, Dr. Flint is a figure of cold, almost mechanical cruelty. Sure, he's able to wear the skin of a man in the sense that we often see him act kindly in the story but deep down we can see the gears of corruption and greed clicking away below the surface and we know that all his kind words are only to benefit his own sense of entitlement and self-worth and to allow him to get what he wants.
- Jozef Helms.
Spinster
Spinsters are women who remain unmarried. While some women may choose the life of a spinster, some women are left into this position due to family circumstances and having past the common age of marriage for the time period. Any number of circumstances can be attributed to the status including scandal, inability to produce a dowry, sickness, or devotion to family. Fanny Fern in her writings indicates that remaining a spinster is not a horrid fate, as write Sarah Josepha Hale would believe, and that woman do have the choice to remain unmarried. Famous writer Louisa May Alcott never married and died a spinster. The term is one which is now considered sexist in terms of its negative connotation, especially when compared with its gender counterpart bachelor.
Tyson Ramirez
Farm Horse or a Fancy Horse
This particular line comes from the beginning of Fanny Fern’s, Folly As It Flies. While having a discussion with a man, Fern begins to explain the unreasonable demands that men make of women. She achieves this point by comparing how men select a wife to how they would select a horse. Fern states that a man could choose a farm horse which is less aesthetically pleasing, yet wholly functional, or he could choose an ornamental horse which is beautiful, but ill-conceived for hard labor. This metaphor shows that a man should not expect a picturesque trophy wife to be as able at hard work, just as he would never expect an ornamental horse to serve him by plowing fields. The use of animals is also done to compare how men are more readily able to understand a spouse as property rather than humans, a tone which is found throughout the piece.
Tyson Ramirez
Monday, October 29, 2007
Midterm
midterm. And take a in depth look @ how sex and freedom are used in the book. I think
there will be an onslaught of Little Woman essays so, I'm going to go against the grain.
Bradlee Rohan
On Being Owned
Joel Rodriguez
Female literacy
Alene Tchekmedyian
New Year's Day
“Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1st of January. On the 2d, the slaves are expected to go to their new masters” (Jacobs 15). A lot of irony is found in just the title of the shortest chapter of the novel; “The Slaves’ New Year’s Day.” One’s New Year’s Day should be filled with a lot of happiness and contentment, but for the slaves, this supposedly-joyful day would determine their life for the rest of the year. Another subject that Jacobs emphasized in this chapter is the sorrows of slave mothers. She talked about a mother who brought seven of her children to the auction-block, and lost all of them to a slave-trader. At this point, Linda Brent hasn’t got any children yet. The chapter somewhat foreshadows Linda whom later on became a mother. As any mother would, Linda did everything she could to protect her own children.
-Dovieke Angsana
Letters in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Later in the work, numerous letters are written to Linda by those who wish to recapture Linda and to bring her back into the power of Dr. Flint. Her literacy, her ability to read between the lines, and her ability to discern between genuine words of honesty and well crafted phrases designed to confuse and fool her, are what keep Linda from becoming the chattel which she struggles so valiantly to resist becoming. Linda's literacy is essential to her successful rejection of a life of bondage. The letters which appear so frequently in the book serve to emphasize the precipitous dangers which constantly loom over Linda, as a fugitive slave, and consequently serve to emphasize the intelligence, bravery, and courage of the woman who employs these letters to her own advantage in order to escape these very dangers.