Author Archives: rreyes150730

Intimate Apparel

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Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel was pretty interesting to me. The issues that women faced in the play was pretty similar to issues that woman face today. Obviously the issues are not going to be exactly the same, being that the play takes place in 1905 and its 2014. One thing that I found to be similar was the fact that Ester wants to find a guy and she is getting older. Woman today are like Ester in that way because Ester has been working since she was seventeen and she really has no time to meet guys. Then when she gets the letter, she is hesitant about it.

Another way that the play is like the world today is because some women cant have kids like Mrs. Van Buren thought. I think it was probably more important to have kids back then than it is now, but women still face that problem today. Actually I’ve been hearing about women and their inability to have children for a very long time. I suppose it was a bigger problem back then because there are suppose to be ways around it today, which is a bit weird because it seems very unnatural.

Another thing is how insecure woman can be about themselves. For example, How Ester thought she wasn’t good looking enough, but thought Mrs. Van Buren was beautiful. Even Mrs Van Buren questioned it when Ester told her. This is interesting because I guess this is a bit of a timeless problem because most women will never really be content with themselves. It sometimes doesn’t even have to do with the way you look. Its just kind of mental sometimes.

Another issue is sexism. The issue was most likely a bigger issue back then because of the time period, but we still see it today. I actually don’t think that men and women will ever be seen as completely equal.

 

Manifesto

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If I were to write a manifesto as Loy did in ““Feminist Manifesto,” I would write about how women are seen as objects in society. When we think about women based on what society has to say about them, we think about beautiful women. They say beautiful women can get away with murder. Women are seen as objects of desire,  but women are people too. They have personalities that are overlooked because who cares, that’s not what they’re here for. A women has a goal? That’s nice. The fact is that on television, you will see half naked women in advertisements for random products. Does there have to be half naked women? No. Although, they do get these’s commercials attention.

There are obviously many gender stereotypes in the world today, so why do women still try to behave how society paints them. Some women do help out the stereotype by getting jobs where they are required to be half naked. Although other women are more serious about this. In the workplace, some women get hired for their looks. They are also seen as sexual objects instead of as coworkers. I heard a story once of a women who got fired from her job because her boss found her too attractive and did not want to have an affair with her. Its very disrespectful that he would just assume that she would be willing to have an affair with him. This was interesting to me because she was obviously not seen as an employee. She was seen as a sexual object and got fired because of it. This is a problem because women do not get to chose how they look and should not have to suffer for it.

People should be treated equally. The fact that woman are seen as objects means that they are not going to be treated like human beings. They are never going to get the respect that they deserve and this is a huge problem.

Miss Furr and Miss Skeene

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“Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene were regularly living where very many were living and cultivating in themselves something. Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene were living very regularly then, being very regular then in being gay then. They did then learn many ways to be gay and they were then being gay being quite regular in being gay, being gay and they were learning little things, little things in ways of being gay, they were very regular then, they were learning very many little things in ways of being gay, they were being gay and using these little things they were learning to have to be gay with regularly gay with then and they were gay the same amount they had been gay. They were quite gay, they were quite regular, they were learning little things, gay little things, they were gay inside them the same amount they had been gay, they were gay the same length of time they had been gay every day.” Found on page 499 of Gertrude Steins “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene”.

I believe that the main idea of Steins passage was happiness. I believe this because as I was reading the passage Stein spoke about the things and ways that Hellen Furr and Georgine Skeene were happy. I’m not really sure what their relationship was, but they lived together for a while and were happy. In this passage Stein says, “Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene were living very regularly then, being very regular then in being gay then.” Stein says that at this point they were living regular lives. They were nuetral, not happy. After that Stein says that they would look for things that made them happy. The author says that at one point they were happy both inside and out. The author also says that they were learning new ways of being happy. Its pretty interesting that Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene were always happy. They were never feeling anything but happy in this story. They were also both singers and that made them pretty happy also. At the end, Helen Furr and Georgine Skeene lived separately. The author tells the reader that Mrs. Furr goes on living in the same place and being happy as always, but we hear nothing about Georgine Skeene.

Conscientiously

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Conscientiously-(adjective)- Controlled by or done according to ones inner sense of what is right.

Page 9, line13 of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper” : “I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

In this line, Gilman is trying to say that she consciously tried to keep count, but she cant keep count.

The Yellow Wallpaper and The Story of an Hour

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In “The Story of an hour” by Kate Chopin I think that there is a reliable narrator. I believe this because in this story, the narrator is not a character. The narrator is talking in the third person’s point of view. This is the kind of narrator that knows everything about every character and gives you many details as to who the characters are, what they are feeling, what they are going through, etc. The narrator began the story by telling us a bit about Mrs. Mallard. The narrator told us “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible her husbands death. ” In that one sentence, the narrator told us a lot about the story. The ending of the story was also given away a bit because of something that the narrator had said. The narrator said “It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence o0f the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallards name leading the list of “killed”.” I thought that it was weird that the narrator put killed in quotation marks. Overall I thought that the narrator was a reliable narrator because they told the audience all the details and everything they said led up to something else.

The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” is different from “The Story of an Hour” because I didn’t feel like the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was a reliable narrator. I feel like she wasn’t a reliable narrator because I believe that she was mentally ill. Her husband John is a physician who told her several times that she was not ill, but she still believes that she is. In the story the narrator says, “You see he does not believe I am sick!” I also think that she is a little bit sarcastic. 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?” I found that a bit sarcastic because she is telling us that her husband says that she is not sick, but she has all of these things wrong with her anyway. Overall, I do not believe that she is a reliable narrator because she only agrees with her own point of view.

The Cottage and The Yellow Wallpaper

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In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, it is easy to tell by the story that the protagonist is a very unreliable narrator. I found several quotes in the story that can prove this.

1) “John is a physician, and PERHAPS–( I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)–PERHAPS that is one reason why I do not get well faster. You see he does not believe I am sick.”  This quote from the story makes me believe that she is making herself sick because her husband say that she is fine, but she says that he does not believe that she is sick. I think this may be a mental thing.

2) “If a physician of high standing, and ones own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporarily nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency-what is one to do” This quote from the story makes me feel as though shes trying to convince the reader that even though the husband says she is not sick, there is plenty wrong with her so she must be.

3)”I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus -but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition , and I confess it always makes me feel bad.” This quote makes me believe that she lies about things because if John thinks shes fine then he would not to to her about her condition. I also believe that she is trying to make the audience pity her.

These quotes prove that she is an unreliable narrator because she seems very dishonest.

The narrators relationship with John seems very complicated. I found a few quotes to prove this.

1) “I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never use to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.” I think this is interesting because she says she gets overly angry at him, but covers it up by saying that it is probably just her condition.

2)”He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” This is also very interesting because this proves that her husband takes care of her.

3)”John does not know how much I really suffer.He knows there is no REASON to suffer that satisfies him.” This quote makes me think that they don’t communicate as much because if they did, he would know that she believes that there are reasons to suffer.

These quotes prove how complicated they are. John seems like he cares about her and  doesn’t want her to keep believing that she is sick. The narrator depicts John as a caring man who may not fully understand what she is going through.

Gilmans story’s may be defined as a utopia and dystopia. A utopia is an ideal place or state and a dystopia is a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease and overcrowding. I think that “The Yellow Wallpaper would be the dystopia because it doesn’t seem like she is in an ideal state because she believes she is very ill, and seems very paranoid. Her relationship with her husband is also not ideal, The utopia would be “The Cottage” because the narrator would marry Mr. Ford.

The setting in “The Yellow Wallpaper” was basically at home, where she was stuck all the time. I think that’s why she hated the yellow wallpaper so much because she always had to look at it. In “The Cottage” the setting was mostly outdoors and the author made it seem like Malda really loved it.

In “The Cottage” I do believe that Malda was a reliable narrator because she was happy.

1)”I was delighted with it. More than delighted. Here this tiny shell of unpainted wood peeped out from under the trees, the only house in sight except the distant white specs on far off farms, and the little wandering village in the river-threaded valley. It sat right on the turf,-no road, no path even, and the dark woods shadowed the back windows.” This quote shows how happy Malda was with the cottage and the areas surrounding it.

2)”Never did I know real joy and peace of living, before that blessed summer at “High Court.” It was a mountain place, easy enough to get to, but strangely big and still and far away when you were there.” This also proves how happy Malda was to be living here.

This proves that she is a reliable narrator because she is happy, so there would be no reasons to lie.

Puritanical

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Puritanical-(adjective)

Definition: very strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so; rigidly austere.

Second page, line 22 of “There once was” 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 means that the first speaker should not be thinking in such a moralistic way.

Aquiver

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Aquiver-(adjective)

Definition: in a state of trepidation or vibrant agitation; trembling; quivering

Line 17 of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin.-She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life.

This line means that it looked like spring outside and the wind was possibly blowing to make the trees tremble.

 

The unfinished story of Cinderella

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“There once was” by Margret Atwood was basically an  unfinished story about Cinderella.  I can see how Atwood’s story can relate to cinderella, but it turns out to be a lot different. As the story begun, I thought there would actually be a story told. When I read the second sentence from the story, I found it very odd because that is when I realized that this was a story with two different speaker, with opposite views. As the first speaker would try and tell the story, the second speaker would interrupt and want to change something. The first speaker would actually fix up the beginning of the story to satisfy the second speaker. I don’t really think that the first speaker actually cared about the details of the story, but you can tell that the second speaker did. It was actually pretty interesting what the second speaker had to say about the story because it made sense. Even though what the second speaker was doing was creating a new story all the things that he pointed out were interesting.

The second speaker would tell the first speaker things like, why the girl had to be poor, or beautiful, or have to poor, when in fact she shouldn’t really be considered poor. I don’t really think that the first speaker was actually interested in what the second person had to say. Unless it was a group effort into writing the story. As the story begun they had a sentence written, but by the end of the story, they only had one word. The second speaker had to be from today because of the way he spoke about peoples appearances and anorexia because people make a bigger deal out of these things today.  By the middle of the story, we learn that the first speaker is telling the story to the second speaker. Although it doesn’t really sound like the second speaker cares to listen

Mrs. Mallards tragic death?

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The Story of an Hour by Kate Choplin was a very ironic story. As the story begins, you can’t help but to feel bad for, Mrs. Mallard. She was introduced as a woman who seems very fragile, and obviously it’s because of her heart problems. In the beginning of the story, the author makes us believe that Mrs. Mallard cares a whole lot about her husband, Brently. The author says that her sister Josephine told the new to her with broken sentences, meaning that she wasn’t sure how to tell her the bad news lightly. When the news was broken to her, she cried in her sisters arms and then made her way to her room, alone. The author speaks about a physical exhaustion that Mrs. Mallard had felt, that reached into her soul. Also how she was just looking out her window, crying similar to a child that had cried itself to sleep. At this point in the story I thought that the story would go on about all the pain she felt or how she would later on deal with the loss. It was very interesting when the author spoke about an intelligent thought that Mrs. Mallard had had because who really thinks in a situation like this. It all became a bit clear when Mrs. Mallard was shouting out free, but was also very ironic. It was very odd because Brently was not sick, he had died in an accident so it couldn’t have been a “My husband was very sick, he’s free from all pain” thing. We later on find out that she herself had been freed from a man who “..had never looked save with love upon her..” It was as if Mrs. Mallard felt relief by his death. When Josephine hears Mrs. Mallard speaking to herself and tells her to stop because it would make her ill, I thought maybe Mrs. Mallard was telling herself these things to console herself, since she did have heart problems. The big twist to the story was when Mrs. Mallard goes downstairs with her sister and we later find out that Mrs. Mallard had actually died of heart disease from joy. Also the fact that her husband Brently had not died.