Homework for “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Jody R. Rosen

In “Recitatif,” Morrison presents two women, one white and one black, without identifying which is which. After reading the short story, how do you identify Twyla and Roberta? Write a comment tracing how you understand each character’s racial identity, using evidence from the text to support your understanding. Reply to one comment that you feel needs your insight!

PS–I’ve added additional meeting times if you are interested in meeting with me and getting an extension on Project #2. I look forward to working with you!

Discussion for Tuesday: Final thoughts on The Bell Jar

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Jody R. Rosen

As we finish The Bell Jar and finalize Project #2, what final thoughts do you have? Specifically, what do you think about the ending? What do you understand better about earlier parts of the novel now that you have finished it and come to understand Esther’s character and experiences? Write a comment–roughly 150 words–here by Tuesday, and reply to another comment–100-150 words by Thursday–to help us wrap up our discussion.

A few other points:

I will post on Tuesday another comment-and-reply request for the texts we’re discussing in class this week.

Remember that if you want to meet with me to discuss Project #2, there are appointments available on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you meet with me for one of those appointments, I will extend your deadline for Project #2. So far, about a third of the class has signed up. If you are interested but no times fit your schedule, please let me know as soon as possible and I will see if I can add in a time to accommodate you.

I look forward to meeting with you, and to reading your comments and projects!

Extra Credit #2- Literary Arts Festival

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Naiomir

This event was actually entertaining for me. When I first arrived I notice the colorful decorations and the loud music. It was nice seeing the video that was created where different students from different background shared a little about their experience in City Tech and their collaboration to this Literary Art Festival event. This group is called LAF Team, showing other students that they could be part of a group where they could join to feel a part of the college society and a place where they will be accepted. They performed a dance to “Because I’m Happy” by Bruno Mars, where they showed their energy and positive vibes to the audience.

After this people started to do reading of writings they have created in which I found interesting to listening to some of their works. There were different styles talking about different things. One of the readings that caught my attention was by Latoya Scarboro, she created a poem where she talked about her life in Brooklyn. She shared her struggles growing up after losing her mother at a young age, Latoya mentioned that although she struggled to get through school she will continue until she accomplish her goal of getting a degree. I found this interesting because I feel that a lot of people could have related themselves to her and the hardships she been through, she was an example that you shouldn’t give up on what you want.

After a couple of more readings a band named “Rough Magic” played. Although this is not my personal type of music I enjoyed listening to them it was something different. After some more reading awards were given out to students that were part of a writing competition. Overall I felt the event was full with energy and it was a good time.

Extra Credit – Intimate Apparel Roundtable Event

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Naiomir

I found this event based on the play “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage very interesting. I enjoyed it a lot because it gave me a chance to see some scenes that students reacted from the play. Being able to see the students acting the scene out gave me a more visual look on how the scene played out. The English classes that perform really did a good job in getting into the character that they were giving. They really showed facial expressions and used tone of voices that helped me see a visuals image of the play. One of the things I found most interesting was when one of the students showed the audience a drawing that she created in which she believed represented Esther. The drawing was two hands holding a rose that was bleeding. The student said that the rose represented Esther throughout the play because she is the only one that gets hurt. I agree with her because throughout the play we see how Esther struggles in finding love and her low self-esteem. We also see her being disappointed even after having what she always wished for because George wasn’t the man that she thought he was. I also do think that Esther wasn’t the only character that was going through hardships in the play.

After this we heard a poem by one of the students in which he created it from scene 2 when Ms. Van Buren kisses Esther and was rejected. I always found this part of the play interesting because was Ms. Van Buren really lesbian or she didn’t it due to the lack of attention she was getting by her husband. I think she had a strong connection with Esther because she actually listened to what she had to say and knew her most intimate secrets and probably felt the need to be a bit closer to her. At the end of this event a conversation and discussion took place between Dr. Marta Effinger- Crichlow and Prof. Jeannie Foster talking about what they thought about the play. Listening to their conversation was very interesting because they really studied the play meaning that they made me see things a little more different for example, George. One of the professor stated that she feels sympathy for George because him as well was a hardworking man that was trying to find her American dream. George wanted to create a new identify for himself. In the conversation it was also started that throughout the play a strong identity to African- American women is given because they all in some sense had some type of independence. One of the things said that caught my attention was when one of the professors stated “never confuse a person inability to read or write with their intelligence.” Although Esther couldn’t read or write she still found a way to survive.

The Meaning of a Cover

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Nathalie Severino

Dutch Edition

American 2009

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a novel about a young woman’s descent into depression and mental illness. It is the story of Esther Greenwood a nineteen year-old woman that actually seemed to be quite lucky. She went to a good university, had a loving mother, an aspiring doctor as a boyfriend, she even won a contest and a trip to New York with a famous women’s magazine. Even with all of that she felt different and unhappy and trapped. She behaved erratically developed a different identity and desired to commit suicide. This story reflects the own life of the author as well, who not too long after publishing the book succeeded in her last attempt and commited suicide. It is evident that this novel is fairly morbid and deep, and it is also a world famous novel.This novel has been translated to many different languages and the cover art has been very different for each country. It is noticeable that each country has a different take on what cover is most befitting to this novel. Some cover arts are like the one from the Dutch edition of the novel; titled, De Giazen Stolp This cover shows a woman in long black clothing slumped on the ground and hugging her knees to her chest while looking up. This cover art idea could be extracted from the section just before Esther goes to the mental hospital, where she decides to crawl into a hole in her basement while overdosing on pills. This cover clearly shows that the book is about the darkness and struggles of a young woman. It is an appropriate for anyone wondering what this novel holds behind that cover. Other covers for this book, American covers in particular, decide to go in a different direction with their designs. The cover from the publishers “Faber and Faber” from the year 2009 take a lighter approach to the cover design. This version shows a woman with a model figure in an non-distinctive white strapless gown with seemingly long hair gathered in a low bun. After knowing exactly what the book is about, this cover seems rather innapropriate. This looks more like a novel about a bride at her wedding. It can only be imagined that this cover idea came from the beginning of the novel where Esther is still in New York living the dream of every other girl her age. Because this version of the novel is somewhat current, it can be inferred that the company went with this friendlier idea to encourage more sales with a younger, more modern generation. There is a famous saying that goes, “you cannot judge a book by it’s cover.” Though this is true, there should be a limit to how far off the subject of a novel the cover art should stray. To those who have not read that book, they would be mislead; and to those who have read it, they will be disgruntled to say the least.

Helga Crane’s Character (Late)

Posted on April 23, 2014 by rreyes150730

As the novel began, I got a sense that Helga liked the quiet and being alone because she didn’t like where she was at Naxos. She was also described as being irritated and having a lot of anger. Helga liked teaching at Naxos at first, but after 2 years, she began to hate it. They were racist at Naxos, and since Helga is biracial, this could have been a reason why she started hating it. She could have also felt angry because in the novel it says that she was like a pity case for her uncle and because she had “negro blood” she would never amount to anything. I don’t believe that that was the life she wanted for herself.

“Most of her earnings had gone into clothes, into books, into the furnishings of the room which held her. All her life Helga Crane had loved and longed for nice things. Indeed, it was this craving, this urge for beauty which had helped to bring her disfavor in Naxos- “pride” and “vanity” her detractors called it.” (pg 14)

This passage shows me that Helga could not be who she wanted to be in Naxos and so this is why she was unhappy there. It also wasn’t the lifestyle that she wanted. I believe that she longed to be successful because of all the thing that she wanted. It’s interesting because Helga’s character seems like its constantly changing to me. This is one reason why I really don’t believe she was happy at Naxos. I believe that what she experienced there wasn’t what she thought she thought the experience would be like because why else would she hate teaching at Naxos if she liked it at first. Helga’s character was also developing because of the people that she was around, like the singing children that she loved and James, who she was with because they were both lonely.

Project #2 Draft: A Woman Alone

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Keila Torres

Part 1: The Bell Jar Part 1 Draft

Part 2: part 2

Suicide

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Shatoya

In chapter 13 of The Bell Jar Esther tries to kill herself after an interaction with Cal. Cal was the boy who Jody had wanted her to meet. They discussed for a while suicide with a shotgun, and things of that nature. the next morning Esther tried to kill herself with a silk cord of her mothers. Though Esther was mentally Ill, she would decide to use whatever sense she had in order to decrease her chances of being out into a mental institution.

Suicide is associated with many things, from peer pressure to mood disorders. In the past 45 years rates of suicide have increased by at least 60% in some countries. This has been the leading cause if death among ages 15 – 34 throughout the world. Attempted Suicide is considered a strategic action to resolve conflict within themselves, parents or peers. This is also considered to be a distress signal, aiming for the empathy, of others. Mental Health and suicide go hand and hand. Of 15, 629 cases of suicide with information on psychiatric diagnoses was over 50 percent. Disorders such as depression, which is a mood disorder, also associated with suicide had numbers of 35.8 percent of reported suicide deaths.

“That morning , I had tried to hang myself. I had taken the silk cord of my mothers yellow bathrobe As soon as she left for work, and in the Amber shade of the bedroom, fashioned it into a knit that slipped up and down on itself. It took me a long time to do this, because I was poor at knits and had no idea how to make one” this is just an example of how much concentration you have to put into killing yourself. There has to be some reasoning fir this type of dysfunctional Irrational behavior. Suicide has been on the rise for years.

bjp.rcpsych.org/content /183/5/382.full

The Bell Jar: Fig Tree

Posted on April 10, 2014 by aminata s

After finding out that Buddy was not as innocient as she, Esther become very upset at the thought of Buddy . As she laid in bed, Esther opens the book sent to her by the ladies day magazine stuff. She goes through the book and she a story about a fig free. The Fig tree grew on a green lawn between the house of a jewish man and a beautiful nun. The nun the jewish man meet under the tree and they continously kept meeting under the tree. One day as they watch an egg hatching in a birds nest, they touched hands. The next day the nun didn’t come out anymore to pick fig fruits. Esther compares the story to her relationship with Buddy. They had meet in their own imaginary fig tree, and after seeing a baby coming out of a women; they went their separate ways. Later in the novel, i believe the fig tree becomes a symbol of the life choices the Esther faces. For instance her constant attempt to kill herself.

The first fig is believed to be native to Western Asia and has been distrubuted by man throughout the Mediterranean sea. The fig tree is small dimensional tree that has numerous branches and a trunk rarely more than 7in in diameter. It consist of a copious milky latex and tiny flowers are massed inside the cell wall. The tree varies in color such as yellowish to copper, bronze or dark purple and the skin is thin and tender. The fig can be grown in a large range of soil, such as light sand, rich loam, and heavy clay or limestone. There are many culivated variities in each fig class. In fact there is about 700 different kinds. The most popular ones are Celeste and Brown turkey. Some fig are used for eating out the hand and others can be dried into coffee. In mediterranean countries, low grade gigs are converted in alcohol.

Intro to Women Writers-Hybrid Sp 2014

Writing Women of the Long 20th Century

Monthly Archives: April 2014