Author Archives: Nathalie Severino

The Meaning of a Cover

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Dutch Edition

Dutch Edition

 

American 2009

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’s Disdain

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In the novel Quicksand by Nella Larsen, the main character is Helga Crane. She is a 23 year-old teacher at a well renowned school in the south for black people. Helga had been teaching there for about 2 years. She had been slowly growing weary of that school, but at this point she reached her limit. The story opened with her desire for silence and solitude, because that day had been horrendous for her. Helga had to sit through a prideful speech made by a white preacher, who made offensive remarks toward black people. This was her breaking point, as seen in this passage, “Sitting there in her room, long hours after, Helga again felt a surge of hot anger and seething resentment. And again it subsided in amazement at the memory of the consider-able applause which had greeted the speaker just before he had asked his God’s blessing upon them. The South. Naxos. Negro education. Suddenly she hated them all.” (6-7)

After hearing those insulting remarks the preacher made to the black students and faculty of Naxos, everyone else applauded. Their acceptance of his words angered Helga greatly. She decided after sitting all night and thinking in her room that she would leave Naxos as soon as possible. She went into the school thinking that this school was a great opportunity for the black race and she wanted to be a part of it. Finally, however, she realized that this school brings no advancement to her race, and may even be oppressing them further. After realizing that she lacks money to travel and the timing is not beneficial to her career, she starts thinking of putting off the departure until the end of the semester in June. This decision weighs on her because she desperately wants to leave. In the end she decides to speak to the principal at least to notify him about her plans. He succeeded for a short while in coaxing her to stay and be a part of the cause to change the school for the better. This lasted a short while, for in the end she told him that she would leave that same afternoon. Helga was in a battle of heart and mind, desire and reason.  She wished to flee but was caught up in realistic obstacles. In the end she made up her mind to go along with her desires.

Banal

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Banal – Adjective

  • Devoid of freshness or originality. Hackneyed, trite.

Found in: Quicksand by Nella Larsen

“…the hundreds of students and teachers had been herded into the sun-baked chapel to listen to the banal, the patronizing, and even the insulting remarks of one of the renowned white preachers of the state.”

This passage shows that Helga starts to feel more disdain toward the school. The preacher started to talk about how the school is great for “Negroes” and that others should know their place like they do in that town. Helga hated the things the preacher said to the school.

Indomitable

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Indomitable – Adjective

  • Incapable of being subdued or overcome; in-conquerable.

Found in: “Feminist Manifesto” by Mina Loy.

“Woman for her happiness must retain her deceptive fragility of appearance, combined with indomitable will, irreducible courage, & abundant health the outcome of sound nerves…”

This means that for a woman to be happy, she must keep her most important qualities, qualities for her strength, intact.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Opposing Stories

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote two short stories from the point of view of two women. One story is in a utopian world, “The Cottegette,” while the other is in a dystopian world, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The short story, “The Cottegette,” showed a woman who loved a man and lived in a beautiful little secluded house. The story ended with them getting engaged because the man loved her for who she was, not because of her domestic skills. Everything in the story was happy with an ideal ending, that is why its utopian. On the other hand, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is very dystopian. The woman lives in misery and oppression because of her illness. The ended is very shocking as well, with the woman “turning into” the trapped woman on the wall. This is dystopian because the story was unfortunate and miserable.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” there are points in the beginning that give us a clue about our narrator’s state of mind. The narrator seems to be quite unreliable. An example of this is when she says,

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression–a slight hysterical tendency– what is one to do?

This passage shows that her mental stability is questionable. A doctor, who also knows her very well, is saying that she is mentally and emotionally unwell. Another example would be when she describes her feelings toward the wallpaper,

 “I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.”

In this passage, it is shown that paper on a wall makes her feel strong emotions. It is generally an oddity to be so emotional over something so trite. The second part shows that she is personifying this paper and believing in her personifications. It is not easy to believe or rely on someone who is mentally unwell.

Chintz

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Chintz – Noun

  • A printed cotton fabric, glazed or unglazed, used especially for draperies.

Found in: “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.”

This passage means that she wanted a different room, A much prettier one, with flowers on the windows with a curtain made of a fancy fabric.

Once Upon a Time…

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The short story, “There Was Once,” by Margaret Atwood, shows that fairy tales are not at all like reality and that people need to realize this when reading them. Modernized fairy tales depict an oversimplified world. The story starts with someone beginning to read the story, “Cinderella,” to another person. The reader had just read the first sentence of the story before being stopped by the listener. The listener disagreed with the setting of this story. It took place in a forest, much like many other fairy tales. She wanted to hear a story in a more realistic, updated setting. The reader then changed the sentence to accommodate the listener’s request. However even after changing it, the listener was unhappy with other parts of that one sentence. She then wanted to change the status of wealth, the labels of good and evil, the importance of the physical attractiveness and that it was a stepmother in the story. She even disliked that fact that the sentence mentions the protagonist is a young “girl” even though she marries in the end, and that the story is set in the past, not the present.

The listener tore that sentence apart word by word. Though we are accustomed to seeing this kind of writing in fairy tales, maybe it is right to not accept them blindly. Especially when children hear these stories, they are deceived into believing in them. The listener thought about the falsities she would have to listen to in this story and she decided it needed to be more believable. She is trying to teach us that we should rid this literature of all its clichés and eternal happy endings and hear more truth.

Puritanical

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Puritanical – Adjective

Very strict especially concerning morals and religion.

Found in: “There Was Once,” by Margaret Atwood.

  • “Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?”

This passage means that “good and wicked” are just people’s labels on what they think is moral and immoral. However, it does not mean that these labels are absolutely true, or that people are born belonging to either label.

What killed Mrs. Mallard, Extreme Joy or Shocking Disappointment?

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“The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, depicts the life of a woman whose husband had just passed, or so she thought. Throughout the short story, there is a great deal of imagery, foreshadowing, and irony even at the very end.

The protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is straight-away revealed to have a heart problem, which makes her delicate to shocking situations. I saw that as a foreshadowing of how the story will end. She was gently told about her husband’s death and she broke down immediately. This goes to show that she really cared about her husband. Then there is some imagery mixed with irony in the story as Mrs. Mallard gazes out the window in a daze. A tragic accident occurred, and outside the window it seemed like a calm beautiful day. I believe that the scene outside brought a spark into Mrs. Mallard. She began to feel something “creeping” up inside her. She tried to fight the feeling, because deep down she knew that feeling so joyous at the death of her husband was very inappropriate; but she couldn’t fight it. She felt that marriage was overly binding. Though she loved her husband, for the most part she disliked him; maybe even hated him. She began to feel overjoyed at the possibility of her new life, a long life, just for herself. This seemed like a bad omen to me, mostly because of the information about her medical issue in the very beginning.

Toward the end, as a plot-twist, Mr. Mallard appears alive; at worst, he is “travel-stained.” Mrs. Mallard reaction was immediate, causing her death. I noticed this from the fact that, as soon as he walked in, Mrs. Mallard’s sister, Josephine, screamed. The doctors figured that she died of the extreme joy she felt. However, I say it was disappointment. Mr. Mallard turned up alive, killing her extreme joy when she thought he was dead.

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Introducing Myself

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My name is Nathalie Severino and I am a Communication Design major. I am 20 years old and my family is from the Dominican Republic. I am aspiring to get my Bachelor degree, however, I am thinking of transferring to a different school this year. After I graduated high school, I actually had a tough time trying to figure out what career I wanted to get into. Up until the end of senior year in high school, I was convinced that I would become a lawyer. It wasn’t until my father saw me hunched over a design trying to make it perfect for two hours that I realized what I was doing. He helped me by pointing out what I was actually passionate about.

I currently live with my sister in the Bronx, but I visit my parents and younger brother in New Jersey often. I am originally from New York, but I had been living there since the fourth grade up until I graduated high school. Until recently, I had been working as a data entry clerk at a union for asbestos handlers called Local 78. It was a monotonous job, to say the least.

One of my favorite things to do is watching movies with my boyfriend, who is also my best friend. I also like video games, fashion, all kinds of music, playing sports, drawing, anime, and eating. One of the main reasons I am taking this class is because I also love literature, and women have written some incredible works throughout history, so this class was my first choice.