The Importance of Names : Final Blog Post

The big question : what kind of affect does an name actually have on someone? When asked to reflect on our Women’s Literature course and all of the material that we read, this is the question that kept coming back to me. Naming a character in a novel, short story poem or even naming your own child is very important. Names allow people to exist. Names can allow humans to be someone. Names can even make you so uncomfortable that you avoid saying it all together. Then there is naming things and then not naming things, and what that means? The names of things or characters of the novels we have read have a strong affect on their everyday lives, and this was very apparent in three of the novels we read this semester.

As I spoke about before in a previous blog post titled “Cat”, naming someone or something allows that person to exists. In The Handmaid’s Tale, there is a common theme of not giving people or things names in order to dehumanize them. The first example from this novel is when the husband of the main character realizes that they cannot bring their pet cat along with them to escape. The main character, Offred says, “and because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.” The husband knew that if he referred to the cat by its name, the situation would be much more depressing for the family. The other example is when one of the handmaid’s, Ofglen, decides to kill herself.  Soon after, a new handmaid is presented to Offred. When Offred asks where Ofglen is, she responds with, “I am Ofglen.” Offred thinks to herself soon after, “that is how you can get lost, in a sea of names. It wouldn’t be easy to find her now.” Because Ofglen never shared her real name, we never knew who she truly was, and there for she cannot exist. This entire story shows that a name is what makes us human, which is very important in itself. Without a name, we cannot exist in this world.

Now, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler is another story. This is a novel that is to make women view their vagina’s as they should be, beautiful. Her whole goal is to first make us comfortable saying the name for the body part, then making us realize how wonderful it truly is and to be proud of it. As we should be. She starts off the novel by saying, “I’m from the down there generation,” and goes on to say how no one would say the word “Vagina.” Its amazing to me that the name Vaginia makes people so uncomfortable that people just forget about it completely. There is a women that claims to have forgotten how to use it. Its crazy too me.

Then we have the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee. This women had three names, Joyti, Jasmine and Jane. These names gave her the power to be three different people. Jasmine was born in India and believed in reincarnation. So for her, through out the different periods of her life when her name changed, she felt like the old her died and a new Jasmine was reborn. She says on page 76 that, “I felt suspended between two world.” And the on the next page goes on to say, “He wanted to break down the Jyoti I’d been in Hasnapur and make me a new kind of city women. To break off the past, he gave me a new name. Jasmine. He said, “You are small and sweet and heady, my Jasmine. You’ll quicken the whole world with your perfume.” Joyti, Jasmine: I shuttled between identities.” And the concludes the novel going describing every person that she has been and wondering what person is to come with her move to California. “Tie will tell if I am a tornado, rubble-maker, arising from nowhere and diapering into a cloud. I am out the door and in the potholed and rutted driveway, scrambling ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope.” It once again amazes me, the power that the names given to Jasmine through out the book allow her to be three completely different people. 

To answer the big question: whether a name is the cause of your existence, makes you uncomfortable or allows you to be many different persons in one body, the importance of a name plays a big part in not only the daily life of the main characters in all three of these novels that we have read in Women’s Literature, but also our daily lives.

A Beautiful Life

Death is a topic that scares some and not others. Personally, death terrifies me. Even being raised in a Christian home and believing in Heaven, it is still is a terrifying subject to me. These past few English classes we have been focusing on the novel, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, but also watching a film called The Hours. The Hours is a very dark but terrific film that shows the lives of three women, Virginia Woolf, a wife who is currently reading Mrs. Dalloway, and a modern day Clarissa Dalloway, whose lives are all connected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway. These women are all faced with some sort of suicide in their lives or the attempt of a suicide.

At first this movie was a bit hard to follow. But as the story went on, it became much more easier to follow. Not to mention it made reading the actual novel a lot more easy. In the novel and in the movie there is a common theme of life and death. The fear or death, but also learning from death, and taking life for what it is, making it mean something and cherishing it.

I think that is the problem with today’s society. We aren’t living or valuing the life we are given. In the movie, Virginia Woolf’s husband asks why someone had to die in the novel. She replied with, “someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast.” We shouldn’t have to have someone die in order for us to value life. We should value it from the beginning. We should protect it with all our strength.

A small example of this for myself is fake tanning. I am a girl and yes I will admit that before Prom and other events I will go to the tanning bed once or twice to get a bit of color. So many times has my father told me to stop because I could get skin cancer, but do I listen? No. But now that my father has a cancer scare, it’s made me rethink the entire idea of fake tanning. Why do something that causes something so awful, when it is preventable? It’s sad because skin cancer is so preventable, but it shows that I don’t value my life as much as I should.

We shouldn’t have to learn from death in order to live. Life is beautiful and short. Its a gift given to us and we should cherish it. I am going to end this post with a quote spoke by Virginia Woolf. It is in the form of a letter that she leaves her husband.

“Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours” (The Hours)

"Solving The Girl Problem II" (17)

I realize that there has been at least 20 posts about the article that was in the last edition of The Standard titled, “The Girl Problem”. It’s been a few weeks since our class meeting where a panel sat in front of the entire high school and discussed some of the issues that they had with statements made in the article. Ever since then it is still a classroom, lunch table and after school topic.
Today, when someone called a male out for objectifying women, he took back his comment and immediately regretted it. It then made me realize that people don’t even realize that they are doing it, which may be a point that everyone realized already. It just took a real life example for me to realize it. How do we keep people from thinking things like this? And are we going to have to constantly remind people that the comments they make are not okay? I do realize however that it is not just boys that objectify women but also women that objectify eachother. Its something we need to work on as a group, but I think that once people become more aware we will begin to see a change in the way men view women.

Dependence on Men in Jasmine (16)

How often do we question our dependence on other people. Depending on someone can be a positive thing or a negative thing. Dependence is what makes a marriage. Dependence is what allows us to have a President, or anyone in an authority position. But dependence can also make us week and vulnerable. It can cause us to make decisions that we can never say we made “on our own”, but that the decision was made subconsciously because of dependence on someone or something.



In Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee the main character, Jasmine has been dependent on the many men in her life at that point in time. Once we all had finished the novel we began discussing Jasmine’s final decision to move to California with Taylor. Was this decision her own? Or will Jasmine go to California to cling onto Du and his new life there.

I see both sides of the argument, although I agree with only one. Certain arguments that were made in class were that she finally made the decision for herself, and she is incredibly proud of it, which is very apparent with the things she says. Things like,

“It isn’t guilt that I feel, its relief. I realize I have already stopped thinking of myself as Jane. Adventure, risk, transformation: the frontier is pushing indoors through uncaulked windows. Watch me re-position the stars, I whisper to the astrologer who flats corss-legged above my kitchen stove (240).”

This passage goes back to when in the first chapter when the astrologer fortold her of her widowhood and exile. This is her making a statement, that when he said “Fate is fate,” that that is not true, and that fate is in her own hands. Another instance is when she has made the decision to leave with taylor, “I am out the door and in potholed and rutted driveway, scrambling ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope.” (241) Both of these statements that Jasmine makes before she leaves make it sound like she is finally doing something for herself, and she is very proud of it.

But listening to her make her decision about why she should move to California makes you wonder why she is really moving out there. When Taylor first comes to her house and asks her to move to California with him she reponds with, “What am I to do? I back off toward the window. The window’s caulking crumbles as I pick at it. The chilly sparkle of afternoon light temps. ‘I have family in California.’ “ (239) No ony do we hear a reponse filled with uncertainty, but we can observe her nervous habit of picking the window’s caulking crumbles and hear her thought process. Its interesting to see how uneasy she feels about the whole thing. And then at the end of the line when she says, “I have family in California.” As if she needs a reason to go. Why not just go because she wants a new life? Because she felt restricted by Bud, her handicapped husband. She then goes on later to say, “I have to see Du.” Another man to depend on.

After reading this post I am sure that you can tell which argument I agree with. I believe that you can’t change who you are just because you want too. Jasmine has always been dependent on men, and she will continue to be. It will take time to distance herself from that, but I do believe that when she goes to California she will cling to Du along with his new life, which will in the end cripple her.


*When looking through Jasmine at quotes while writing my final blog post, I came along a passage on page 78 that I realized fit in with this perfectly. It says, "He was twenty-four and I was fifteen, a village fifteen, ready to be led."

"Solving The Girl Problem" (15)

It’s been a few weeks since the article, “Solving The Girl Problem” was published in the Standard, our school newspaper. At first it caused quite the uproar, from both males and females. After a few days’ things seemed to clam down, until today during our class meeting a panel of six seniors, mixed gender, gathered to discuss the issues of the article and also answer any questions anyone had. The author of the article, was also on the panel, began the meeting by clarifying some things that he did not mean to sound they way they did, but also standing behind some of the things that he did. From that moment on the recent prom stories did not seem to matter, this was the topic of the day.

It was interesting to hear what people all over the school thought about the meeting and the article. I had the pleasure of sitting with Ms. Talley, my Women’s Literature teacher, and a small group of other girls in my grade during lunch, and we had the chance to discuss our thoughts. I am the type to sit back and listen to other’s points, but this is one thing that really frustrates me when it comes to this article. In the conclusion of the article the author says, “girls need to stop thinking of themselves as objects of desire, and start taking themselves seriously.”

We think of ourselves as objects of desire, because men view us as objects of desire. Do you think that I, or any other woman willingly wants to stress about how they look every second of every day? Yes there is also the point that you don’t have to care, but we are human, and we look for admiration. This whole “viewing ourselves of objects of desire” idea is not a one-way thing. I’ve been with my guy friends when I hear what they say about girl. Things like, “She gained so much weight in college” and “Why does he like her? She is so ugly.” Well guys, we have ears. We hear a lot more than you think we do. No one wants to be on the other side of those comments, so we bend over backwards not to be. So next time someone wants to place blame on a woman for thinking of herself as an, “object of desire” beware of the things that you might be saying to make her feel that way.

Another thing I would like to add is something that one of my close friends said today. She was talking about the meeting and said something that I found very interesting and something that I agree with 100%. She said, “I wake up every morning and put on nice clothes and wear make up because I want too. It makes me feel confident, so then I go into school with confidence, which then allows me to go through my day confident. I do it for myself.” I completely agree and I think that if you talked to most of the girls in our school they feel the same way.

Mothers (14)

Today in America everyone is celebrating mother’s day. This day is an entire day dedicated to honoring your mother. Our mothers do so much for us that we often forget to realize to be thankful. Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues and Jasmine, the main character from our new novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee are thankful for their mothers even though some of the things they said or did are not things that any child would want to hear about. They are two honorable women that see the compassion in their mother’s actions and have a positive outlook on life.

Eve Ensler was sexually abused by her father at a very young age. Her other two siblings and her mother remained untouched. In a recent interview with Eve Ensler that we watched in our Women’s Literature class, she explained that her mother had once told her that Ensler was her “sacrifice.” She then spoke about how she understood why her mother did that and as most children would be terribly angry with their mother, she was not. She said that her mother came from a very poor family and was not really going to be able to do much with her life, until she met Ensler’s father, whom saved her from her old life. She said that it would have been nearly impossible for her mother to leave everything and go back to the life she had once lived. Hearing Ensler speak so compassionately about her mother after knowing something like that is incredible.

Jasmine, a character in our new book was telling a mother with the name of Wylie and her son the story of when her mother tried to kill her. She said, “When the midwife carried me out, my sisters tell me, I had a ruby red chocker of bruised around my throat and sapphire fingerprints on my collar bone.” When Wylie hears this she hugs her child closer to her. Jasmine then goes on to say, “My mother was a sniper. She wanted to spare me the pain of a dowrylessbride. My mother wanted a happy life for me.” The Jasmine goes on to tell Wylie how much her mother loves her, and that her actions after Jasmine’s birth were done because Jasmine’s mother wanted her to be re-born into a better life.

These two women, Ensler and Jasmine, are two of the most honorable women. They notice the love behind their mother’s actions, even troubling ones. As humans we are so quick to assume that everything is done with bad intentions, when most of the time they are not, it just tends to come off that way to us. These women have a positive outlook on life and I think that they are all examples of women that we should want to be.

"My Vagina Was My Village II" (13)

The focus of my last blog post was that the issues around the world that we are presented with should not be dismissed just because they do not happen to us, because we did not choose the life we were given. It is something that is completely out of our control. You could have easily been born as a dragonfly and have a life span of twenty-four hours.

From a very young age, Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, was sexually abused by her father. Her two siblings and her mother were never touched. During an interview that we watched in our Women's Literature class the other day, Eve Ensler talked about it very a very calm and upbeat tone. She mentioned that she lived in a middle class, all white neighbourhood. Bad things don't happen in areas like that right? Wrong. She was being abused by her father, and everyone was in such denial that they dismissed it all together, even though many of the neighbours knew what was going on behind closed doors.

I am guilty of this exact thing. Not under those circumstances, but there have been many things that I have seen or heard that I have dismissed because I was in denial that they actually happened. That is not okay. We are meant to make a difference for someone who can't, and we are failing at our job. So after watching a video about the work that Eve Ensler was doing in the DRC, there were many dropped jaws. We quickly moved on from the video and had a more upbeat discussion about the book that we were reading. But after class my close friend Simone asked if we could talk about it. We talked about how it was one of the most powerful video's that we had seen in a long time and we didn't just want to move away from the subject. So recently we have gotten a few people from our english class together to do something about this issue going on in the DRC. In two weeks, our two Women's Literature english classes are combining and holding a week long bake sale to raise money for the women in the DRC.

Its sad that we had to watched such a horrifying video in order to want to do something, but it definitely had an affect on all of us. I think that we should all try and do something to help those who need it, because we are part of this world, and we should act as if everyone is our brother or sister.

"My Vagina Was My Village" (12)

My Vagina Was My Village

(pages 61-63)

“My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing sun resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blond straw.

There is something between my legs. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do not touch. Not now. Not anymore. Not since.

My vagina was chatty, can't wait, so much, so much saying, words talking, can't quit trying, can't quit saying, oh yes, oh yes.

Not since I dream there's a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing line. And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit and it bleeds through all my summer dresses.

My vagina singing all girl songs, all goat bells ringing songs, all wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs.

Not since the soldiers put a long thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod canceling my heart. Don't know whether they're going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain. Six of them, monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles up me too. There were sticks, and the end of a broom.

My vagina swimming river water, clean spilling water over sun-baked stones over stone clit, clit stones over and over.

Not since I heard the skin tear and made lemon screeching sounds, not since a piece of my vagina came off in my hand, a part of the lip, now one side of the lip is completely gone.

My vagina. A live wet water village. My vagina my hometown.

Not since they took turns for seven days smelling like feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me. I became a river of poison and pus and all the crops died, and the fish.

My vagina a live wet water village.

They invaded it. Butchered it and burned it

down.

I do not touch now.

Do not visit.

I live someplace else now.

I don't know where that is.”

This is an excerpt from, The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. When I first thought about writing a blog post about this book, I was stuck. I had no idea how I was going to write a piece on a book all about vaginas. Then Mrs. Talley told us that we should talk about how a certain part made us feel. After she said this, this is the chapter that I kept going back too.

So, how did this make me feel?

I felt incredibly upset after reading this. That this happens. Not just once, but all the time. This is something that is normal in some parts of the world, and it troubles me. I also felt angry. How could a man do this to a woman and be able to sleep at night? Doesn’t he have a wife? Doesn’t he respect women? I felt moved. This was just such a powerful piece that I was moved to want to change circumstances for other women. I felt uncomfortable. Who wouldn’t? I was sitting in the library reading about a woman’s vagina getting torn, and things that are not meant to be up there, shoved up there. It made me incredibly uncomfortable. I felt shocked. I felt compassion, compassion for the women who have been through this and feel like they can’t go on. Woman that use to believe that their vagina was their “hometown,” comparing it to a place of comfort and safety, and now can’t even think about it without being disgusted.

I think that one of the reasons this piece is so powerful is because of the way it was written. You go from reading a beautiful sentence, of how her vagina was “green, water soft pink fields,” to a sentence like this one, “Not since I dream there's a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing line. And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit and it bleeds through all my summer dresses.” This part of her body was so beautiful and sacred to her, and now has no meaning to her at all, except disgust.

This is a true story, and we need to be careful that we do not dismiss it. I am a victim of reading a story, and because it did not happen to me, I don’t really think twice about it. This habit is dangerous. We were placed into a safe life, when we could have easily been born into a village where this happens to women daily. We didn’t get to choose where we ended up, so we should do something about it while we still can before it’s too late.

The Big Question (11)

While reading, The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf, the main question that I keep asking myself is, what is true beauty?

We are always told that true beauty comes from the “inside,” but in today’s society we are constantly bombarded by the media with advertisements and people teaching us that beauty does not come from the inside, but rather outwardly adornments. For example, Kate Moss caused hysteria with her comment saying, “nothing taste as good as skinny feels.” Its sad that girls look up to a woman that is giving such negative advice.

After finishing, The Beauty Myth and Killing Us Softly 4, I realized how much advertisements subconsciously effect us all. They are constantly telling us that we need to bu things that alter our appearance because we are not “good enough.” We are made to believe that the day we have been dreaming of since our youth, our wedding day, will not come if you do not “look” beautiful in a mans eyes. Women go to painful lengths, such as cosmetic surgery, and tell themselves that it is not “painful” because it’s for beauty. We make ourselves believe that are bodies are not beautiful, when we could not having working legs, or have suffered from third degree burns. When it comes down too it, we are brainwashed.

Its said, because these companies that advertise to use are extremely successful, because we hate ourselves. They are selfish. They make women believe that, “if it flatters our self-esteem, it is not effective.” Somehow these people sleep at night, and I am not really sure how.

Wolf mentioned at the end of the book, that we need to talk about the beauty myth, in order for it not to effect us anymore. “This will be hard. Talking about the beauty myth strikes a nerve, which, for the most part f us, is on some leve very raw. We will need to have compassion for ourselves and other women for our strong feelings about the “beauty,” and be very gentle with those feelings.” We need to get in our mind that its less about looking beautiful, and more about feeling beautiful. “In a world in which women have real choices, the choices we make about our appearance will be taken at last for what they really are: no big deal. Women will be able thoughtlessly to adorn ourselves with pretty objects when there is no question that we are not objects. Women will be free of the beauty myth when we can choose to use our faces and clothes and bodies as simply one form of self-expression out of a full range of others. We can dress up for our pleasure, but we must speak up for our rights.”

Why do you want a wife? (10)

While interviewing my grandmother over spring break, we got on the subject of her parents and my grandfathers parents. What were they like? What were their roles in the house? My mother said that her parents were both very kind and loving people. Her father was very independent and never made his wife wait on him. If he needed something, he got it. He helped around the house and definitely did his share. How refreshing right? My grandfather’s household was a lot different. She said that his father was a farmer and when he stepped foot in the backdoor he immediately began barking orders at his wife. He would sit at the dinner table and not use full sentences. He would say things like, “BREAD. TEA.” “I don’t even think he knew how to pour his own tea,” said my grandmother. She finished by saying, “your grandfather knew that he never wanted to be like his father, and he isn’t.”

After reading through my interview and reading this part, it called my attention back to a short article we read earlier on in the semester, “Why I Want a Wife,” by Judy Syfers. This article is meant to be humorous, and it succeeded. Here is an excerpt from this article:

“I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs. I want a wife who will keep my house clean. A wife who will pick up after my children, a wife who will pick up after me. I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I nee the minute I need it.”

The question is, “what do men want in a wife?” Do they want someone like my mother’s mother, someone who is kind and loving, and is well respected? Or do they want someone like my grandfather’s mother, who was ordered around every second of everyday? I don’t think every single man feels the way my grandfather’s father felt, especially now that woman have become much more respected in times like those, but its still a question that can keep you up at night.

Media (9)

http://agnijagrigule.tumblr.com/page/7

Find this picture shocking? Most people would. But what people in the fashion industry do not realize is the pressure they put on girls in the 21^st century. Whether it be conscious or not, the idea of being “perfect” has become THE thing for girls our age to stress about. Do you remember when you were 9 years old and you could care less if your clothes matched or if your hair was perfect? I do.

For the past two English classes we have been watching a film called Killing Us Softly starring Jean Kilbourne. This was a very hard film to watch because Kilbourne was so blunt, which was needed. Our minds are filled with ads telling us that we need to look a certain way, eat a certain food, use a certain product, in order for a male to find us attractive, or to be “happy,” and that is just not true.

But we don’t only get this from advertisement, but from TV shows too. In our most recent book The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, she says, “A girl learns that stories happen to “beautiful” women, whether they are interesting or not. And interesting or not, stories do not happen to women who are not “beautiful.”  She is right in saying this. Look at all of your most favorite TV shows. A few of mine are Gossip Girl, 90210, Glee and Grey’s Anatomy. How many times has what one would qualify as a “not beautiful” girl ended up with the dream guy in gossip girl? The same goes for 90210. All of the actresses are stunning and always get their dream guy. The one show that I have watched that does a very good job of portraying real life in a school is glee. Yes, sometimes all of the singing and dancing can seem a little cheesy, but it doesn’t make you wish that you were a size 0 with blonde hair and the perfect clothes every moment that you watch it.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2010111//425.glee.cast3.lc.120110.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b213939_grammy_noms_love_way_you_rap_eminem.html&us....

But things are looking up. In the movie, she said that different countries were beginning to make changes to their magazines that were positive. It’s only a matter of time before the trend starts catching on! Jean mentioned this video in the movie, but I really think that everyone should watch it. My mother emailed it to me whenever it first came out, and it is just refreshing to realize that the models you see in the magazines aren't always perfect. 

Dove Evolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

"We've come a long way baby" (8)

My grandmother is my best friend. When I can't stand my parents or anyone else, she is always there. She sends me weekly "Nana's Nuggest" filled with advice and helpful bible versus. She is one of the most Godly woman that I know, and I look up to her because of it. When Ms. Tally told us that over Spring Break we were to interview an older women in our life, I realized that I had never really talked to my grandmother about her early life.


During the interview, after a series of questions I asked her, "What else would you like to add to our study of American women's experience and perspective," she replied with a quote from a very popular cigerette commercial from back when she was younger. Her response was


"'We've have come along way baby (a popular quote for Virginia Slim adds),'" It showed the world that women could now do the same things that men did. They could smoke, drink and go out, things that they never could do. But on the other hand, I think that a lot was lost. Women lost their neatness. We were so protected and cherished, or at least in my community we were. A man would always come to your door to meet your parents, hold doors open for you, and give you the respect that you deserved. I think that that is a good thing, that we lost as women."


After I heard her concluded the interview with that statement, it got me thinking. She was right, we, as woman, have lost a lot of that respect she was talking about. We can't place total blame on men for this however, because by the way some girls dress and act these days does not make it easy to respect us. We were born into a society where women sell themselves for sex, men and women cheat on their spouses and divorce is more common than marriage. What has the world come too? Why has this become okay? Am I old fashion for believe that its not okay? I think it is time that women win back the respect they had. I am not saying that women do not have respect at all, because there are a lot of women I do respect, but I think that its a lot less common for men to respect us as a whole.


With all that said, we have come a long way. Women are taking control and proving themselves, which back in my grandmothers days was very uncommon. "There were not working women back then, it was all run by men, it was strange. Now there are women all over the place, and I like it."

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU7sGgjCgFfNI6jhrau3DOEVUPmHedKAoxf__fpkZIRbQyE60A-SkEKSjOAHS54oQOStLNV3wBSOBJ8N-LZWZc2SZpV7H9x8A1ESzZVf1Em6WYBdQkj01jcdwJARtSW4Deg4yckFIpbFc/s320/Virginia%252BSlimsMarlboro--you've%252Bcome%252Ba%252Blong%252Bway%252Bbaby%252B2--various%252Bwomen's%252B83.jpg&imgrefurl=http://virginia-alex.blogspot.com/&usg=__tF4IVF4Pf0DzlbVMSu1apxrRuWY=&h=320&w=235&sz=22&hl=en&start=0&sig2=SdYhczkjfR2phA9upNdnjA&zoom=1&tbnid=PoQMRGRLTWca7M:&tbnh=133&tbnw=107&ei=heaVTer_FYq64AaF0KmqDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3DYou%2527ve%2Bcome%2Ba%2Blong%2Bway%2Bbaby%2Bvirginia%2Bslims%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D906%26bih%3D662%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=376&vpy=195&dur=543&hovh=256&hovw=188&tx=81&ty=172&oei=heaVTer_FYq64AaF0KmqDA&page=1&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0

"Nobody's Child" (7)

While flipping through my Vogue magazine on the flight to the Cayman Islands, expecting to find add after add and read a few mindless articles, I came across one of the most shocking articles that I have read in awhile. It was the story of an author, Taylor Stevens, and how she had been raised in a religious colt since birth. It explained the rules of the colt and her life as she progressed through it, hoping in the end, to remove herself from the colt, and the struggles she had after she did remove herself.

A man that went by the name of David Berg founded the colt that Stevens was born into. He did not want his followers to find jobs, maintain a family consisting of a mother, father and children, or stay in one place for a long period of time. Family bonds were broken, children did most of the work, and privacy did not exist. Steven’s, at age fifteen began begging in Osaka, and talked about how that it was the dead of winter and she was wearing flip flops, but that “no one cared. I belonged to a colt, and I was nobody’s child.” Stevens mentioned that her most prized possession was a cassette recorder that played Greek classical music. Because music and reading of any kind was band, she often played her cassette recorder at night on the lowest volume possible. When she “craved diversion,” this was her escape.

In the late 90’s, Stevens got to choose the next place she wanted to go and she chose Africa. She chose Africa because she wanted to distance herself from the colt. She then married a man from Europe, who was also a part of the colt. She said that they didn’t have the best romantic chemistry but then followed with a very interesting sentence. “We were the only two members of a similar age in the area. As I like to say, did Adam really have a choice about Eve?” 

Once they had their first daughter, Stevens realized that she did not want her daughter to live the same life that she had. They finally left the colt.

“I will never forget how elated I felt the first morning I woke up in our own small apartment, finally free of the eyes that had been watching and judging me my entire life. Going to the grocery story, buying clothes, scheduling doctors appointments—All the ordinary things most adults take for granted—Were frightening and novel experiences for me.”

After reading this article, I began to see similarities between Steven’s story and The Handmaid’s Tale. Steven’s had a loophole, her cassette player, when she needed an escape. This is similar to Ofred and her tricks to keep her sanity. She might not have had anything tangible like Stevens did, but in the scheme of things, it was an escape. One of the things that I found most interesting about this, this article paints a picture of what life out of Gilead would be like if Ofred had escaped. Terrifying. Just doing daily tasks by herself, without someone watching was frightening. The Handmaid’s Tale left us to create our own ending and I feel that if Ofred does get out of Gilead, that she would succeed, like Stevens. She worked so hard to keep her sanity so that if she did get out of this society she would be able to survive.

Stevens is now 38 and has only been educated up to the sixth grade level but has “succeeded.” In the article she talks about how everyone was told that if they left the colt that something bad would happen to them. Well, in Stevens’ case, this was not true, and because she took the risk and left all she had known, she wrote an amazing story. Yes this is only the story of one colt, but this could happen anywhere, just like in The Handmaid’s Tale, and if it does, we are going to want as much knowledge about those situations as we can get. We have a lot to learn from Taylor Stevens.

http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/nobodys-child/

Cat (6)

Have you ever wondered about the importance of a name? If you do not have a name, who are you? Do you exists? In The Handmaid’s Tale, characters are given new names once the new society is created. The handmaids are given names like “Ofglen” or “Offred” which is our narrator’s new given name. Authority figures, depending on who they are, go by names like “Commander” or “Aunt.” While thinking about this in class the other day, something that I found myself relating this too was the classic story, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The main character Holly refuses to name her own cat. She claims that its because she feels that the cat does not belong to her and that giving it a name adds personal identity to it. So, through out the entire story, she would always refer to her cat as “Cat.”

When you think about the thought of naming a person or animal, it’s a delicate process. Parents often think of names for their children months before they are born. And how often do we find ourselves stressing about what to name our next dog? A name is something that determines who you are, your existence. I found that in The Handmaids Tale, women are given new names, in order to de-personalize the situation. We are first introduced to this very early on in the story, as the society begins to change. Luke and the narrator are in the processes of planning their escape when they realize that they cannot leave their cat alone. Luke soon comes to the conclusion that the only thing to do is kill the cat. He then tells the narrator he will “handle it.” After the narrator hears her husband say that phrase she says, “and because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.” The husband was creating a less personal situation for the family, by de-humanizing the cat.

Later on in the book we see this same thing happen, only with one of the handmaids, Ofglen. Ofglen kills herself and there is a new Ofglen that replaces her. When Offred asks if Ofglen has been transferred, the new Ofglen replies saying, “I am Ofglen.” The narrator then goes on to talk about how she never did know Ofglen’s real name. “That is how you can get lost, in a sea of names. It wouldn’t be easy to find her now.” Because we are never revealed Ofglen’s real name, it’s as if she does not exist.

This society has it down to a science. Take away their name, and it becomes a lot easier to do awful things and feel better about themselves. We do not only see it here, but in everything that is done. The Commanders treat the Handmaid’s like sex slaves without guilt because they don’t know their real names, their personal identity. To them they are someone’s property, the property of Fred or Glen. They might as well just call them “Cat.”

So next time you are naming something, remember how important a name can be, because without one, you can just become another “missing person” (p. 113). 

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Sanity II (5)

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred has a constant desire to keep her sanity. In her mind this is the only way of survival.

“I know where I am, and who, and what day it is. These are tests and I am sane. Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough when the time comes.”

As I mentioned in my previous post, I felt as if the society, unknowingly, helps her keep her sanity by placing a cushion with the word “FAITH” in all capital letters on it in her room. But Offred has her own tools to help her keep her sanity. One of the tools she uses most often is making distinctions about valid objects. “The red of the smile is the same as the red of the tulips in Serena Joys garden.” She demonstrates this on page 43 when she is observing the dead bodies hanging in white. She takes her time to pick apart details and make connections, but she knows herself there is no connection. This paragraph seems quite pointless to us, but this is how she goes through her daily life without completely giving herself over to this new society.

We see her again making distinctions between two different things on page 120. When she receives her egg she then makes a distinction between the egg and the moon. At a time where most people would just sit and eat their meal, she talks about how Good must look like an egg. And how the life of an egg is on the inside and how there must be life inside the moon. She then goes to talk about how in reduced circumstances there is a desire to live, which then attaches itself to strange objects. She goes on about how she would like to own a pet.

The mind is a very powerful thing. I think that we underestimate the ability it has to help keep our sanity. At the same time, our mind can also cause us to go insane. But Offred uses her mind to its full potential, in hope that by doing these tests and making distinctions between objects, when the time comes she will not have lost herself. I think that Offred, through all of this, realizes that her mind is her best friend in this isolated society. 

Sanity I (4)

There is something I came across in the first reading of The Handmaid’s Tale that has been on my mind ever sense. From our reading so far we get the idea that Offred is a very optimistic women that has to use her mind to keep her sane. If she gives herself over to the new society there is no going back, and if she goes against the new society then she fears what might happen. To keep herself intact with both lives, she often recalls things about her loved ones and details about what she thinks happened to them. There is an entire section in eighteen about what she thinks happened to her lover Luke. She assumes the best and the worst all at once. She even says on page 116,

“The things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke, at one and the same time. This contradictory way of believing seems to me right now, the only way I can believe anything. Whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it.”

But alone her mind cannot keep her sane. I have found that through out her daily journey she receives words of optimism. I first noticed this when she was in her room.

“I go to the window and sit on the window seat, which is too narrow for comfort. There’s a hard little cushion on it, with a petit-point cover: FAITH, in square print, surrounded by a wreath of lilies.”

I found it strange that in a society that forbids reading, they leave a word like FAITH for women to read. As if it is a gift from God saying to have faith in Him and all will be all right.

The next place that I noticed a word like this come up in the story was on page 116. This is just after she has come up with all of the scenarios about Luke and she says, “One of the gravestones in the cemetery near the earliest church has an anchor on it and an hourglass, and the words: In Hope.”

This might be a bit of a long shot, but I feel like these words that are left for her viewing subconsciously lift Offred’s spirits and keep her optimism strong. 

The Freedom to Choose (3)

Have you ever thought about a life without freedom? I am sure we all have once or twice, but we never imagine it happening to us. We are often told not to take things for granted, but have you ever really thought deeply about it? In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood the women have lost every ounce of their freedom. All they are aloud to do on their own without supervision is breath. They have become “two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices”, says the narrator on page 146.

The only word that comes to my mind currently is, “shocking”. I am shocked that these women are turned into breeders and sexual intercourse has turned into something that is only seen for its main purpose. That they are no longer given the freedom to chose what they would like to wear on any given day or where they would like to walk or sit. They can’t even take a bath when they want to.

This is when I actually began to realize how important it was not to take things for granted. In the areas where we live we are given the freedom to do almost anything. I can come home any day and sit down to watch my favorite show, or read my favorite book without being punished. These women live in fear or doing something wrong and becoming an “unwomen”. This is a rather short entry but this has been on my mind since I read the first few chapters. This book and many other’s, like Fahrenheit 451 teach you to treasure the simplest things like reading and writing. 

Sweat (2)

After our class discussion last week in Women’s Literature, I realized how much I actually enjoyed the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. Not that I did not enjoy it the first time I read it, but while going through and discussing different things about the story, it brought many things to my attention that I found quite interesting.

Sweat was not easy to read. The language was difficult because it was written as one might really talk in the Deep South a long time ago. For example instead of writing “I don’t care if you ever finish”, the narrator would write “Ah don’t keer if you never git through.” I often found myself reading it aloud to figure out what the characters were saying. But apart from the hard to read dialect, Sweat was full of really interesting spiritual references and also the concept of “karma”. 

The main feminine character, Delia, is not your average woman. She is strong and straightforward. I think that no one would want to be in the situation that she is in, but because of how strong she was and the way she reacts to her situation makes her admirable. Her husband physically and mentally abuses her soon after their marriage for 15 years, and it never stops. But even though sometimes she takes the beatings, she never gives up. I know for a fact that if I were in that position, I would have hit the ground running after the first beating. But she knew that her husband would get what he deserves. She even said after her husband and her had had a fight that, “Sykes, like everybody else, is gointer reap his sowing.” And until this day would come she would stand firm, and because she did so, she is rewarded and he is punished at the end of the story.

Another thing that I found very intriguing about this story was the many references to parts in the bible. Growing up in a Christian home, I picked up on these references quite quickly. Religion seems to be a big part of this short story. Going to church on Sundays and sacrament are mentioned countless times. Her husband even gets angry with her for cleaning when she mentions she had just “taken sacrament at the church house” but had come home and returned working. He even calls a hypocrite for doing so. This is because Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest. But what really caught my attention was the description in the last paragraph of the story.

“She could scarcely reach the Cinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish the eye which must know by now that she knew.”

This reference to a river rising is suppose to illustrate justice. The Nile River in the bible represents purity and this is the river of purity “extinguishing” the eye (her husband). I just thought this was such a great way to describe her husband getting what he deserved. Anyone could have just said that her husband died because he did her wrong. Another obvious biblical reference is the issue of the snake. Serpents in the bible represent the devil, and when he brings the snake to the house, the snake ends up being what kills him.

I think that Sweat just goes to show all of us that what goes around comes around. ;)