– adjective
– Pleasent and enjoyable; very friendly
– http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/congenial
– “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.”
– In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the main character has temporary nervous depression. Her brother and husdnad forbid her to work, but she believes that congenial work will do her good.
– adjective
– Impossible to seperate; closely joined or related
– “Home life being in our minds inextricably connected with married life, a home being held to imply a family..”
– In this passage, Charlottle Perkins Gilman talks about how a family is hard to seperate, especailly with a faithful marriage.
– adjective
– Consisting of or measured in money
– “To this day articles are written, seriously and humorously, protesting against the increasing luxury and comfort of bachelor apartments for men, as well as against the pecuniary indepedence of women…”
– This passage is all about women and economics and how womens financial status are affected by marriage.
-adjective
– Living for several years or many years
-existing or cotinuing in the same way for a long time
– http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perennial
– ” For it is a perennial puzzle why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literlature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet.”
– Virginia Woolf uses the word perennial as it relates to women and how they were treated back then.
Adjective
-continuing forever or for a very long time without stopping
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perpetual
– “He has to introduce himself a state of perpetual lethargy.”
-Virginia Woolf stated that before she told us about a strange experience that we first have to understand a novelist state of mind. And as a novelist, he or she has to have a perpetual state of mind.
In the passage “A Short Essay On Being” by Jenny Boully, the author talks about her life and experiences being a woman from Thailand. The common theme in this passage is how Jenny thanks people for correcting her. The first time someone corrects her is when she visits a friend from graduate school in Austin. She corrects Jenny when Jenny tells her she wants to make her “pot thai”. Then her friend tells her it’s “pad thai” and not “pot thai”. You can tell Jenny was a little upset when she says, “And even though she knew I was Thai and even through she knew I was born in Thailand and had been back numerous times and even though she knew that my mother raised me to speak Thai and still spoke to me in Thai, I thanked her for correcting me.” Jenny explains how it’s the Thai way to not to correct someone, instead just be the bigger man and say thank you. “You move about quietly…you don’t show others their errors- you let them eventually come to learn the errors of their ways and have them come to you for forgiveness later.” I agree with Jenny because I believe in the same thing and tend to do the same thing to my friends and even family.
“And lots of other things,” said he. “But you haven’t done half as much of your lovely work since you started this kitchen business, and you’ll will forgive me, dear it hasn’t been as good. Your work is quite too good to lose; it is a beautiful and distinctive art, and I don’t want you to let it go.”
1. The Cottagette
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
3. In this passage, Ford Matthews is explaining to Malda that even though he still grew to love her even after she started cooking and cleaning, he insist that she lets it go for her own sake. He knows how talented she is and he feels it would be a waste to let cooking and cleaning get in the way of her art.
4. This passage relates to the bigger issue of how society views women. Maldas love for Matthews was so strong that she didn’t realize how she was slowly becoming a house wife. Nowadays it is very common to have house wifes that stay home, clean and cook. This passage is important because it shows us that they are men who don’t think every wife needs to be a house wife, that she can be whoever she wants and the man will still love her unconditionally.
Helen Furr had quite a pleasant home. Mrs. Furr was quite a pleasant woman. Mr. Furr was quite a pleasant
man. Helen Furr had quite a pleasant voice a voice quite worth cultivating. She did not mind working. She
worked to cultivate her voice. She did not find it gay living in the same place where she had always been
living. She went to a place where some were cultivating something, voices and other things needing
cultivating. She met Georgine Skeene there who was cultivating her voice which some thought was quite a
pleasant one. Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene lived together then. Georgine Skeene liked travelling. Helen
Furr did not care about travelling, she liked to stay in one place and be gay there. They were together then and
travelled to another place and stayed there and were gay there.
This first paragraph talks about a woman, Helen Furr who leaves her husband, Mr. Furr, so she can be “gay” and live with Georgine Skeene. Although Helen had a “quite pleasant home” she couldn’t live in a house where she couldn’t cultivate her voice. She met Georgine Skeene at a place where they both were cultivating their voices. The first paragraph ends with Helen moving out , leaving Mr. Furr, and moving in with Georgine Skeene. Evidence of Mrs. Furr leaving Mr. Furr other then “Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene lived together then”, notice how in the beginning of the poem Gertrude Stein refers to Helen as Mrs. Furr, but after she meets Georgine, she’s referred to as Miss. Furr. These two lived with each other for a long time The obvious motif is this passage is the word gay. Gay expresses the relationship between Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene, but also expresses and glorifies the happiness shared between the two. Stein uses repetition on the word gay so readers can focus on the different meanings of the word gay. Since they lived gay for so long, their lifestyle became very gay, everything they did and say was gay, gayer then the day before. Another motif was the word cultivating, meaning to improve growth. The lesbian couple both started cultivating on their voices, then they grew to cultivate their relationship. Eventually they ended up parting ways due to their different desires. Although these two women grew to accept themselves and grew to help each other to be who they really wanted to be, their seperation wasn’t at all heartbreaking since they both benefited from the relationship.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
