Prof. Jessica Penner | OL05 | Fall 2020

Diana Rivera, Anonymous Critique

ENG 1141 

Creative Writing 

Formal Critique 

Reviewer’s Name: Diana Rivera

Title of Piece: â€œWhatever Happened to____?”  Author’s Name: Anonymous

Reading Anonymous’ piece, I definitely felt moved from beginning to end. The way that she was able to describe being a female writer in her eyes, while also describing being a wife, a mother, and a teacher was breathe taking. Showing her talents of being creatively organized through all the hardships she had gone through in both her marriage and her personal dreams. I am a strong believer in everyone being creative in their own ways through their own hardships, it’s their own way of showing an audience, no matter the target, of her emotions and ideas through her words. 

Growing up in a certain type of culture, I saw two types of women. One being the normal stay-at-home mom, where she did nothing but cook, clean, and take care of both her children and her husband. Then there’s the working mother, who manages to both cook, clean, and take care of her children but also take care of herself by having a hard-working job. And that second type of woman is what Anonymous was; that mother that would stay at home but still publish more books than her husband. And because she was able to have such credible abilities to do so many things at once, it brought to light her husband’s insecurities. Making her husband abusive because of the strong woman figure taking over what should have been a man’s position in his eyes. Which tied into her finding writing more difficult than it was already being a mother. 

My only question would be, if she was to go back in time and choose to be just a mother and a wife to avoid going through what she went through, would she take that chance? Would she give up her passion for writing? 

1 Comment

  1. Marina Malak

    Hi Diana,
    interesting question to ask the author!, i can only imagine how hard the answer would be given that she has a daughter and given her passion for writing and how she managed to keep writing while working and taking care of her family.

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