This Blog

This blog is a cooperative study aid created by UCLA students in English/Women's Studies M107A American Women Writers in Fall, 2007.

Too Much

In Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall we see that Avey and her family have probably asked too much of everything and they would look more into quantity rather than quality is better to have just one of a thing that you know is going to last longer than to have more than one and none might be useful. Probably it could also reperesent that they gave too much or that society expected too much from them or too much for them to resist the pressure of assimiltaion.

When do you stop giving

In the short story The Moths by Helena Maria Viramontes the 14 year old finds herself really dissapionted at her mom becaause everything that goes on in the house revolves around her husband and she says "when do you stop giving" when do do you stop giving into the beating, giving to others, when do you start giving to yourself, to mama Luna or when do you start giving motherly love to her daughter.

Purple

The title of the Color Purple has a significant meaning to the novel. The color purple reperesents bruses that Celie receives. It also represent Shugs nipple and vaginal purple. Celies discovery of her vagina was a important to her growth as a woman because she realize that her button would raise her to a new world, a world of pleasure.

Queen honeybee

In the Color purple by Alice Walker we have Shug called Queen honeybee. Queen might be refered as the most important, honey represents her sweetness, maybe that she tastes like honey. She is a creature of nature, a pollinator which gives new growth and in this case she gave a new life to Celie, she was the figure that gave a new blossoming to Celie. Bee could be interpreted as someone that can harm, someone that can sting and pobaly she sting Celie towards the end of the novel because Shug left her for someone else.

Burning of the Picture

This happens in Seventeen Syllables. Mr. Hayachi burns the honor that Mrs. Hayachi was given for her writing. The burning of the photo is important because it represents the cremation of Mrs. Hayachi's counterpart Ume. It's an act of destruction/violence toward Ume. He is killing her. He is also destroying Mrs. Hayachi's commitment to her art and the inner life that she has.

--Sara Eslami

Sofia

Sofia is Harpo's wife and a character from Alice Walkers The Color Purple. Sofia comes from the word philosophy and means wisdom and that is what she is to Celie. She importnat because she is Celies first dose of wisdom. She is the first to critique Celie and force her to see the "woman as doormat" idea. She helps grow in a big way before Shug gets there. She is also the first person to make Celie laugh which shows the emergence of the women.

--Sara Eslami

Chicano Spanish / Linguistic Terrorism

Terminology: Chicano Spanish
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

North White Plains

In Praisesong for the Widow, Avey, and her husband Jerome move to North White Plains after Jerome becomes successful. The move to North White Plains,out of Brooklyn is one of the first steps in Avey assimilating, and leaving behind her black culture. Avey's move to North White Plains represents the black, southern culture moving to the free white north. Though Avey and her husband are moving toward economic freedom and a better neighborhood, they are not free to be themselves,and maintain the connection to their black heritage.
- Amber Boateng

Okeh Records

Okeh Records is mentioned in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow. In the novel it is stated that Jerome Johnson’s father had been a scout for Okeh Records, which is a record label that represented many African-American blues and jazz artists that other record labels would not associate with. Jerome Johnson has a strong taste for blues and jazz, two genres of music that are often associated with the black man’s struggle. Johnson’s affinity for this music shows that he is in touch with his roots and that he is entrenched in the movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.



-Max Latman

Double Telling

“Double-telling” is a term that was coined by UCLA professor King-Kok Cheung. Double-telling is when a writer includes a secondary story behind a surface, or manifest story. This technique is used in Hisaye Yamamoto’s “Seventeen Syllables.” On the surface it is a story of a woman that writes haikus, and her husband who does not approve of this activity. On the secondary level, “Seventeen Syllables” is about the pent up frustration of a woman who feels that her life has been ruined by her marriage, and a man who feels he has been emasculated.



-Max Latman

Pocketbook

This is seen the story Parisesong for the Widow by Paul Marshall. Avey Johnston’s pocketbook becomes part of who she is and her identity. Her pocketbook symbolizes her life. “ like her pocketbook outside, had been emptied of the contents of the past thirty years during the night, so that she had awakened with it like a slate that had been wiped clean”(151). When she wake up next day and finds her things in the pocketbook scattered across the floor Avey realize she needs to let go of her obsession with material thing. She stores everything she has in it and never leaves it behind. It becomes the storage room for thirty years of history and memories. When Avey Johnston strip her cosset and leaves her pocketbook behind it seems like she is ready to leave behind her past and move on.

Jerome Johnson - "Jay"

Jerome Johnson represents the assimilation into the American culture. Before Jay became the obsessed money maker, he was a cultural man that represented the energy of the Harlem renaissance. He listened to music such the blues and jazz, and would always dance with Avey. His attention to Avey and their relationship consumed a major part of his life. He enjoyed rituals such as gospels and understood his culture in the literary sense by reading. He shows us how he was an organic force filled with the beauty of life and culture. His ultimate decline was giving up these fruits of joy and pursuing a life that did not belong to him, but to the typical middle-class Anglo-American. He shows us how powerful the American dream can be through his submission to its values. The assimilation to the American culture almost seems unstoppable as we see how he loses what he had with Avey and forgets his internal, soulful livelihood. His death shows us how without the understanding of ourselves we have no life.

Juan Contreras

“Promise me you will never marry!”

At the end of Seventeen Syllables, Mrs. Hayashi implores her daughter to promise her that she will never get married. After suffering a great defeat at the hands of her husband who has destroyed her prized hiroshige, Mrs. Hayashi tells Rosie the truth behind her marriage- that it was simply “an alternative to suicide.” Yet, her marriage seems itself to be a kind of death for her as she is forced to be submissive to a man who is unequal to her in intellect and spirit. She wishes to spare her daughter this fate, although it is an unrealistic request probably made in vain.

Leslie Bowen

Legba

In Voodoo, Legba is one of many intermediary gods through whom followers can communicate with God. He is a trickster god who is at once lame and intensely active and mobile. In Praisesong for a Widow, Lebert Joseph seems to embody this god. Although at the beginning of Avey’s encounter with him he walks with a cain, he later dances the juba and proves quite mobile. As a kind of “trickster,” he seems to be at once man and woman, old and young, black and white. As an intermediary, he becomes a kind of initiator for Avey into her true culture.

Leslie Bowen

Enryo and Gaman

In Hisaye Yamamoto’s Seventeen Syllables, the Japanese ideals of Enryo and Gaman enter into Yamaoto’s descriptions about gender relations as they play out between Mr. and Hayashi. The principle of Enryo that dictates indirectness, and self-restraint. Women should exercise Enryo to show their modesty. Gaman, associated with enduring situations with strength, should be used by a man as he remains reserved. Yamamoto questions this traditional model of gender relations. Mrs. Hayashi is crushed when she is forced to obey her husband’s denial of her right to express herself through her Haiku. Mr. Hayashi, who exhibits Gaman until one day he finally snaps and becomes destructive, cannot seem to abide by this model either. The unhealthy relationship between these two seem to suggest that the principles of Enryo and Gaman are not sufficient in maintaining a happy relationship.

Leslie Bowen

Abuelita’s house in The Moths

Bursting with life and vitality, Abuelita’s house is a place of growth in The Moths. In stark contrast to the violence and alienation she feels in her own home, the narrator flourishes in this environment. It is a particularly female space as the plant life around the house can be seen as a sign of fertility. This place of peaceful rejuvenation provides a much needed escape from her own patriarchal home, where she feels deeply misunderstood. Abuelita herself provides a different model of womanhood than Amá, who has given into a life of beatings and oppression by her husband. She shows the narrator a different way to live- a way that a woman can thrive and grow.

Leslie Bowen

Allegory in Woman Hollering Creek

In Sandra Cisnero’s “Woman Hollering Creek”, Cleofilas moves to Texas from Mexico with her new husband, where she dreams and hopes for a better, more luxurious life. Cleofilas quickly finds herself isolated, beaten, and neglected.
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

In Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow, the main character Avey reflects on her past after she abandons the cruise ship she was on, the Bianca Pride. The Bianca Pride represents whiteness (Bianca is loosely translated as ‘white’), and Avey’s assimilation into the white community, and how out of touch she is with her own culture. Avey goes on cruises filled with white people to feel luxurious and important, and her two friends that she travels with are also very out of touch with their roots, and one nearly passes for white. The Bianca Pride is a large commercial boat, with several upper class restaurants and several stories.
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

He would grab my arm and dig his nails into me to make sure I understood the importance of catechism

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