Coverage
Talking Back and The Sins of Silence
These links cover all the packets that I have read and analyzed. The first three links focus on the aspect of feminism. The first link contains two analyses, “Talking Back” and the “Sins of Silence”. These revolve around the poor life women led in a man’s world and how it transformed when they acted upon it.
The second link discusses the impact that Barbie dolls and teen magazines have on youth today and how it has manipulated society’s ideal image of teens and children.
The third link is titled “The Beauty Myth” and reflects upon the power of sexuality and why women suffer to attain this.
The fourth link “Blame it on Feminism” discusses the consequence that women suffer from gaining feminism; by obtaining feminism and freedom they are robbed of their true happiness that lies with men. Both “The Beauty Myth” and “Blame it on Feminism” make connections to Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
The fifth link is an informal commentary to a passage from “The Handmaid’s Tale”. It confers about Offred’s ambivalence towards love with the use of literary devices such as imagery, diction and tone.
The sixth link is an analysis of “How Fiction Works” by James Wood. This analysis highlights the significance of the narrator and the term “free indirect speech”. In addition, connections to Zamyatin's We are made.
The last link is my emotions and thoughts to the book The Road. I discuss the impact the book had on me and my likes and dislikes, as well as the author’s connections to the characters in the book.
Depth
This blog discusses the popular doll “Barbie’s” and its impact in society. It also introduces a similar impact that teen magazines have on youth today. The main idea that the article focused on was how Barbie’s look like harmless toys that children play with yet in reality it plays the role of being the ideal image for teen girls. In my blog, I discuss that teens are undermined through pressure to become the perfect “Barbie” because they want to be accepted in the norms of society. I make connections to the modern world today in which it can be observed that many movies like “She’s All That”, “The Princess Diaries” and “The House Bunny” My next section conveys the similar effects that teen magazines have on girls. Teen magazines impose insecurity in girls because they display pictures of models that teens believe are “perfect” and “accepted”.
This blog discusses my feelings towards The Road after I finished it. I shared my likes and dislikes about the book and some key elements that I noticed such as “hope” that was represented through fire. I also talked about the effect that Cormac Mccarthy’s style of writing had on me, and the effect of simple language and similes. I related some of my emotions to a catastrophe, the tsunami, in which I elaborated on the key fact that even today people are unaware of what they have until its gone. With this, I made a connection to the popular tv series “Gossip Girl” in which higher class teens live in a bubble, unaware of the real happenings in the world. In addition, I discussed Cormac Mccarthy’s relation to the book and why he wrote such a passionate book about the bond between a father and son.
Interaction
This is a link to Asim’s informal commentary on a passage from The Handmaid’s Tale. He discusses how diction was used creatively to distinguish between the changes in tone that occur between stanzas. He also looks at it from a man’s perspective, his thesis being: “By using diction that relates to falling, a change in tone from content to disgust, and irony, Atwood foreshadows the immutable dominance man was to have over women.” This made it altogether more interesting to read as I did not interpret this extract in the same manner. I did question one point of his that he made but overall, this was an amazingly written informal commentary.
Discussion
This blog discusses two experiences of a woman. The first one “Talking Back” discusses the experience of Hooks who wrote down her thoughts and opinions wherever she could. What I found most interesting was when she did become a professional writer, she was still filled with insecurity and fear from her childhood. These are the emotional results when you let a passion like this stay trapped inside of you for so long. The next one “The Sins of Silence” in which Thao teaches her daughter the principles of being a “good Hmong woman”. One of the main principals was to believe that “Silence is power” – I completely contrasted to this principal and expanded on that. A discussion was sparked from these two experiences by Pooja and Aishwarya. Pooja did not agree with some of the connections that I made between these articles and the book 1984 yet also shared some very interesting questions that I had to ponder on before replying. Aishwarya discussed her thoughts on my blog and also mentioned the similarity to Nina’s blog.
This links to a practice commentary done by Akash. It was very appealing to read and it seemed that Sabrina, Nina and Jorina thought so too. There were many points made that were captivating yet literary devices were lacking and I would have liked to see more of that. In addition, his thesis needed some specificity which Nina also mentioned in her comment. With some clarification in his thesis, his points would have been much clearer and easier to associate to the book. Overall though, it was enjoyable to read!
Xenoblogging
The Comment Primo:
Pooja’s blog on “Dystopian or Post Apocalyptic? A review on The Road” has some similar and contradictory points that I felt strongly about. I expressed my views and was gladly joined by a friend, Saumya. Like me, she felt that simple diction can be used in a powerful manner yet she mentioned that simple structure and diction is used to describe the “simplicity of life” which is when I disagreed with her. Saumya also mentioned another book called “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” that contained a similar writing style which I intend to go check out. J
The Comment Informative:
Aishwarya’s blog on “Female Liberation and Female Beauty” mentioned many thought-provoking points yet they did not go depth hence I pointed out some ideas she could have included and expanded on to support her arguments. For example, I gave her an example she could have used from The Handmaid’s Tale about the character Janice. Linking it to The Handmaid’s Tale would have been the icing to a cake but overall, it was pleasurable to read! J
Wildcard
After reading some war poems, experiences of feminism, and The Road, I decided to write a poem about the beauty and ugliness of life. Enjoy!
Life is what people make of it.
No one sees the wonders of it till we’re gazing down at the world from the skies
And its then that we see how much we missed out on and we cry
Because life should not be lived at the bottom of the pit
Why are we are oblivious to the beauty of life but not the ugliness of it?
We see death lying silently in the mud waiting to strike
We see soldiers decay, drenched in blood after long battles at war
We see society’s standards drowning individuality
We do not see the confusing colors of butterflies’ wings
We do not hear the trees whispering in the jungle
We do not see the way a tide folds in at the break of dawn
Yet we see the waves when they crash down onto us like a tsunami
We see the butterflies when they obstruct our vision
We hear the trees when a woodcutter chops off its heart and it hits the ground
We are the selfish creations that do not understand the true meaning of life
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