2 or 3 things I know for sure by Dorothy Allison

This book brings up a good issue of beauty. What is beauty exactly? Is it your physical appearance, how you carry yourself the way your hair lays flat or the bright colors of your eyes or is beauty who you are as a person, your innocence, your grace? In the book, Dorothy Allison talks about how in her community that females were not known as beautiful. Since they were known to have lots of babies which wore them out, they lost their young vibrance but took on a older tired look. They were just looked at as sluts, child bearers but not beautiful. "We werent virgins, even if we really are". The stereotype of negative image placed upon these women started to make them think that they were not beautiful nor was anyone else. They were conditioned to think that they were sexual objects used to bear children. These women whole idea of beauty and self worth were distorted due to the pregnancies and tendencies of some women. Dorothy Allison never had the chance to be beautiful. Her motther and aunt were forced to grow up fast due to the fact of having babies so she to was not able to have her young beautiful stage in life. The question is, even though these girls were forced to believe that they had nothing to do with beauty, does that mean that its true ?

The shawl

The shawl

When dealing with a premature death, a lot of people handle it differently but it is not unheard of for someone to hold onto that memory of her baby. Her way about doing it was to pretend that she was still alive and write to her. She could have

When the Emperor was Devine

The confession part of the book summed up the life of a Japanese during the time of the interment camp to me. The father was being interrogated and in his confession, instead of admitting to be the one they were looking for, he admitted to be every Japanese man in America. After Pearl Harbor, all the Japanese people were blamed for it when they took no part in the situation. The father was one of the men and he decided to confess knowing that whether he did or did not he still was going to be accused. During the confession it was as if he was tryin to just take on all of the things that his people may have done both good and bad. He said how he was the man who crept through windows and attacked his wife and daughters but he also was the buddist priest and the grocer. By doing this he also showed that he was also an American, that he was that same man whose their neighboor, their workers, their educators. It was more like a reality check to the officers who interregated him. Its as if he was saying that your accusing your everyday people who live just like Americans for a crime that other Japanese people done.

When the Emperor was Devine

The first couple chapters in this book have a way of appealing to different emotions. One way this was done was by showing a switching of potitions. In the first chapter, the mother was forced to stay strong when dealing with the issue of havin to leave and go to the interment camp. She gets rid of the animals, and stays strong as she gets her kids prepared to take the trip. She is forced to stay strong through this difficult time because the father is around and she doesnt want her kids to worry eventhough she is scared of what lies in the future for them. Where the author appeals to emtion is the switch in the second chapter. On the train ride the daughter decideds to be the stronger one and takes some of the load off her mother. She doesnt want her brother to worry so she tells him what he wants to hear such as the fact that they will get to see 8 horses when her brother ask. She also tries to stop her mother from worrying when she tells her that the man she met near the bathroom said everything was going to be ok. He didnt really say this but the daughter didnt want her mother to worry or be scared anymore so it was as if she took the role as the parent to protect her familly since her father was not there and since she could tell her mother couldnt handle the stress. This appealed to emotion because it made the realization of what was going to happen more real and scary when the daughter had to take the role and be strong.

When the Emperor was Devine

In the book when the author put great emphasis on the killing of the dog, the giving away of the cat, and the letting go of the bird, it further emphasized the importance of animals in the Asian cultures. The fact that the mother got rid of these animals before her family was takin to the internment camp showed that she cared about them and wanted to spare them the pain and suffering of what she was about to go through. He sympathy and compashion she felt in order to save these animals could have stemed from their praising of animals in certian parts of Asia. This came to my mind when I thought about a book a read as a child called Chinese New Year that spoke about the year of the dragon. In the chinese culture they associate 12 different animals with the rotating 12 year cycle. It is said that the animal that you are associated with represents how others see you or how you are presenting yourself. One of the 12 animals is a dog which represents honosty, intellegence, and loyalty among other things. This then made me think about how the mother killed the dog before her family was taking away. The author could have put so much attention on to these animals because of the importance of animals in certain asian cultures but she could have had the dog killed for a deeper purpose. Every other pet was giving away but the dog was killed. This could have been because he was one of the special animals and it could have signified the mothers honesty and loyalty to her culture and her beliefs.

FUN HOME

Facial Expressions explains it all

The facial expressions on the characters in the book fun home seem to throw me off from understand what the real purpose of the book is. The blank faces among the mother and the harsh faces upon the father makes the characters seem emotionless, like they lack the ability to care about anything when the words circling the pictures tell a different story. At times you could see the caniving and mysterious looks upon the man could match his alter ego, a homosexual man who has sex with teenage boys. Other times those same faces are shown when he plays with his kids, taking family pictures, and enjoying leisure time while over in Germany.

This book to me seems like the story of an average family. It may not have extreme stories such as homsexuality but in all have its own set of secrets. On the inside they are barely holding on because the many issues within their relationship has seperated them. On the outside they pull off this image of a perfect family. They display a tight knit family that not only communicates perfectly but is involved in eachothers lives. With this story, I think the author was very smart on how she placed the blank faces among the characters. I believe that the faces on the parents, especially the father, shows their hidden secrets and unhappiness while there body language shows a more open person.

Even though as I read the book the characters facial expressions throw me off, I realized that its the author telling two stories at once.

My Angry Vagina by: Eve Ensler

One thing that I appreciate about the Vagina Monologues is that they say the things that women only wish they could say. Society has forced women to believe that everything going on "down there" has to be kept a secret but this book publicized it. She praised the vagina and put a face on it making it a more comfortable topic for women as well as everyone else to discuss.

My angry Vagina was about all the horrible things that happen to vagina's that was never explored or talked about. Eve Ensler talks about things such as putting a thicke wad of cottom inside the vagina or having the doctor put on these big gloves and stick things inside the vagina and tell the woman to "relax the vagina". I personally never felt comfortable enough to talk about these things with anyone so reading this made me feel a little embaressed for a second and then as it went on I started feeling a little comfortable. I was raised to believe that certain subjects such as what goes on down there should be kept private but Ensler wrote about it for everyone to read. The language she uses is similar to what I say when I have certain issues with the vagina. Sometimes I wish I could say half of the things she says about how some things we go through are uncomfortable or how she wishes that things would change in order to work with tenderness of the vagina. I felt like she just came out and said everything I wanted to say for me. I felt as if she gave a face, a name, a personality, to my vagina as if she humanized it and made it personal.

"Night Woman" by Edwidge Danticat

This story is about a single mother who is struggling to take care of her son. In order to provide for him, she takes on a job as a prostitute working during the night. She takes men home and fulfills her job around her sleeping son, only a curtain away. When her son ask's her about what she does and why she gets all dressed up she simply reply's "im waiting for angels to come". With her son getting older she starts becoming worried that he is gonna find out about what she does so she comes up with this lie. If her son was to ever ask her who the man is that is with her she was gonna tell him it was his father, that "an angel has brought him back from heaven for a while.

This story is about the life and hard times of any single mother who has to do whatever possible to provide a means for their family because her sons father decided to "disappear with the nights shadows a long time ago". This mother decides to become a night woman or a prostitute  in order to take on this challenge of life. In order to protect her sons innocence, she lies to him. She denies him the truth about their true financial issues and struggles and the truth about what low down dirty thing she has to do to men but she keeps his hope alive. She would rather him think about the positive in the world, heaven, the angels, the fact that his father who had left probably to be with another woman of the night would soon come back.

This single mother wanted the world to seem like heaven to her son to keep his hope alive rather then revealing him to the horrible truth of it all.

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.
Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

My analysis

This poem is about the two countries that Nye represents being both Palistanian and American. She is using the word skin to describe herself, what people see when they look at her. People see her skin eating and walking and taking part of the every day activities but no one actually knows what is going on behind her skin. When you look at her you see a regular lady not knowing who she really is just as people brush feathers away without taking the time to really find out what it is.

People may see skin do these things but "skin felt it was never seen". She was never seen for who she really was, a Palastanian American but she was just seen by her skin. Nye believed that this skin that was only seen by the ignorant eye had hope. That her skin can not only cover up whatever is going on inside like healing over the "scarred places" but skin can breathe hope that it will one day be recognized for what it really is.

In the end of the peom Nye writes about how behind the skin is a secret. Skin holds memories of her heritage, of her culture, and of who she really is. Skin also thanks the people who took time to explore and to accept these other cultures. Without the people who travel to far places, who accept other cultures and places, she would not have been created and would not have been a mixture of two countries.

Two Countries by Naomi Shihab Nye

Two Countries by Naomi Shihab Nye

19 Varieties of Gazelle poem analysis

TWO COUNTRIES

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray t

Phenomenal Woman by: Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.