Final Paper

                                               

First of all I would like to thank the person who asked me to take this class, then of course my professor Guarino, who chose these incredible books and novels full of adventures and true facts about our society’s women. After taking this class, I feel like now I really know the reality of the women who have suffered everyday but still they didn’t give up and give their selves a new identity. By taking this course, I learned that there are many different ways to read books, novels, and poetry. I learned that how a one paragraph, a stanza, piece of commentary, or just a photograph can be looked at in different ways and how we can talk about it in long discussions. Before taking this course, I never really looked at any book that deeply, but now I know that how much importance a book holds. To appreciate the author’s talent, we should go deeply into it and gain a lot from it.

I think this course has just changed my way of thinking about women. Now I see myself at a different angle. I feel much more educated about women. The things that I learned about women in this course, I never even imagined before. I learned that how a woman sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of her family. To raise her child, she can do anything no matter how shameful or how stoop it is. “Krik? Krak?” is a best example to explain a “mother”.  The story “Night Women” was a story, which showed that how a mother prostituted next to her sleeping son to raise him. For her child she didn’t think about the society, all she thought of was her child. She didn’t even think of the consequences of her son getting to know about the truth.

I also learned that even though women do so much for their families, but men are always given more importance. The biggest facts that I learned about women were from the books called “Vagina Monologue”, “I’m an Emotional Creature”, “Push”, and the movie called “What I want my Words to do to You”.
                                    “GIRLS CAN’T CONTROL ANYTHING

BOYS CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT”

These two lines from “I’m an Emotional Creature” said everything to me. These lines show me the positive and the negative sides of human beings. Girls can’t control anything mean to me saying that they are useless, weak, and just a waste on the earth. Boys are the world. They can do anything they like and even use women in the way they like. I think these lines were the core of the course. But we have proved them wrong. Because as we read these books, we found out that women in the books didn’t give up. They faced the problems and society and overcame. “Vagina Monologue”, I think this book is not just a book; it’s a woman who is speaking for all the women. Reading this book is awareness about women. Yet it’s very uncomfortable to read at times, but like its said truth is not easy to be heard. I would it’s a very strong book and being a woman, we should all read it. “Push” is another book that was just an incredible book. I felt this book was a torture, but also a hope for women that if Precious can come out of her grieves and move on with her life then why not us. “What I want my Words to do to You” was also an incredible video to watch. It was a great chance to learn about these women in the jail, who have killed their spouses. Before taking this course, I haven’t seen a one video that what these women in the jail have gone through and how their life is now. Taking this course has helped me learned about them too.

            This course was also a great chance to go back to the history of the camp’s women and their lives after surviving. This course has taught me a lot about women. I’ve gained a lot more knowledge about them. I learned that how important education is in women’s life. If they are educated, they can fight for their rights a lot batter or I would say education makes women fearless about men. This course has proven the society’s views about women not being able to control anything. Women can do anything and can go very far in their lives leaving the men behind.

                                                                    Thanks very much, Prof. Guarino

                                                                                               

2 Or 3 Things

I think why authors write their biographies, is that they want to let the readers know about the real world. What they had to go through, how bad the situations were, how they were tortured by their own family, and how they suffered every moment without any food. Some authors write to let the reader know that how they came through the bad situations and made their own identity in the society. Some writes, because they want the world to know that they do exit and are famous people who survived out of the crises. The readers who are far from the reality, biographies give them the sense of understanding the situations of the real world. I would say biographies are awareness.

“Two or Three Things I know for Sure” written by Dorothy Allison is a biography of her life with her real life pictures in it. I think it was a good idea to put the real photos of the family in the novel, because pictures do speak. It’s a known fact that you can read a person face by looking at it that what this persons’ life like. Having the photos in novel, you can tell by looking at them that how the people in the family or relatives changed as they grew older. How their expressions or the way of living changed. I think photos connect you more to the novel. They give you extra interest to read. If you look at the picture, it gives you thinking and makes you read more. You look at it and say who this would be and why this person looking like this, why this person is happy or sad, or why he/she is holding this or that. So, I think it’s definitely a great idea to have the real photos in the novel.

“Two or Three Things I Know For Sure”, I think  is a very detailed biography. I think it’s little confusing if you read it once or not give much attention to it while reading it. To read this book, you really need some alone time to focus. I think it’s a very detailed and unique novel. I think she did good job by putting all the stories together that happened in her life with different people. This novel has some things similar to the other books that we read. In this novel, Allison when she was little girl, she also got sexually and physically abused by her stepfather. It’s just not few women in this world that say that someone raped them, there’s a lot like Dorothy Allison. “The man raped me. It’s the truth. It’s the fact”. It’s a fact of many women’s life. Some don’t tell they just consider suicide the better way to end the matter. Some, I would say are very courageous women who go through it and still comes out crystal clear. They face the world, face the facts and make their own identity. I think all the books/novels that we read, sexual and physical abuse was always there. I think it’s one of the top issues now days that need to be fixed. Men should be ashamed of their selves that whatever they are doing with these women is not right. They are all like their mothers and sisters except the ones who they will marry to or are married to. I think telling the stories through novels/books is the best way to make readers aware of these types of men. By reading it, it can help the girls to stay alert from the men and save their selves.

I think Dorothy Allison is just not a good writer, but there’s also truth in her writing. I think there are a lot of writers, who write just to make you believe on their made up stories and make money out of it. Whatever I read so far in my life, I never read anything like this author wrote when she was ending her story of life. She says, “I can tell you anything. All you have to believe is the truth”. What I got out of it that you only have to believe what you think is right, not what other say. I don’t know if I’m right, but I think it’s true. You should have trust in yourself first, then someone else. Because you know yourself better than the person in front of you who is telling you stories. I think it also applies to the safety of women from getting sexually and physically abused. If you know yourself completely, you know the world. You can protect your own self. Novels and books like “Two or Three Thing I Know For Sure” are also there to make you aware of your own identity and be aware of the world.

2 or 3 Things I Know For Sure

“Two or Three Things I Know For Sure” was somehow confusing for me to read at the beginning to till I read. I tried to remember two things and forget the third, if I remember the third I would forget the other two. So reading this book for me is just like its title. I kind of look at this novel as the other novel that we read called “Fun Home”. Just like in Fun Home, how author was going back and forth while writing the story, this book is kind similar to it. Fun Home was a tragicomic with all the imagery in it; this novel also includes real life photographs. The way of writing, imagery, and expressing the story are little different in these books, but the idea is same. I easily get confused while reading the stories where author changes the story a lot or goes back and forth in the timing of story. So, these two books are kind of like that. This story is based on author life, who is Dorothy Allison. It’s a story of Gibson women, who’s her mother, sisters, cousins, her aunts, and the men who loved them or married them and abused them. I think one of most important part of her life was her mother. Her mother was a beautiful woman and men wanted her. At the age of fifteen, her mother became pregnant with her by the boy her mom loved. But he deceived her mother and left them all alone and after that her mother stopped trusting men. “When he ran away, left her to raise me alone, she never trusted any man again”. I think that was the moment, which turned her mother from beautiful, ignorant, proud, happy and hopeful girl to a bitter, hard, tired and ugly woman. I think this is just not a story of her mother, it’s a story of every other woman who trusts the man of her dreams more than herself and at the end all she gets is deceive by that man and left all alone in the field. Allison grew up be different than her mom. I think because of her mother she chose to be different than her. She thinks herself as crispy, efficient, and a kind of person who do things that are necessary to do. But her aunt Dot says, “You mean and stubborn and completely Ruth’s daughter”. Her aunt describes her as a mean, stubborn, and an ugly girl. But Allison doesn’t care about what other say, she stay in her own world, so that she wouldn’t have to go through what her mother had to. She says, “I don’t hold grudges. I kick butt and keep moving”. She had a good bond with her mother. I think her mother was a kind of person who keeps a lot secret in their hearts. When Alison used to shuffle through the pictures in mamma’s box, there were so many faces with a lot stories. So, her mother was keeping a lot in her heart. I think by looking at her mother and also by what she had to go through in family, she didn’t want to become like her mother and that’s why she tries to do or be different than her mother. I mean she was abused mentally and sexually by her own family, which is a big obstacle that comes into a child’s life that keeps you away from moving on. I am just wondering that what else she will do in her life to move on. I looking forward to read more and find out about it. I think it’s an interesting story and also in some way it’s a story of every girl’s life, who’s abused physically, mentally, and sexually.

A Latter to Magda

There were some places, where I couldn’t figure out who Rosa really is and why she does what she does. The story of Rosa’s life has been changing for me from the beginning to the end, but there was one place where I could really understood her. It was the letter that she wrote to Magda about her true self, which really changed my point of view about her. After reading it I was really able to understand her situation that why she acts in the way she acts. I think she is a very true person. Whatever she did or acted like was all a part of her and her family’s reputation. I think she is one of the persons, who carry their true and very own identity, not the one that society likes. She was just being very responsible to carry on the life after all the suffering she went through that her cast or her high society would do. She comes from a very high and reputated family and I think that’s what motivated her to live with her past. She is the one, who remembered her past and lived with it while living in the American society. I have actually become a fan of her, after reading her letter. In the letter she talks about how people (Stella) change after happening all that. She talks about how much Stella hated/jealous of her daughter. Even when she sent her the shawl, she didn’t even bother to send it by registered mail, which probably tells that Stella is a very selfish and very irresponsible woman. Rosa writes to Magda, “She didn’t take the trouble to send it by registered mail! Even though I told her and told her. She has no heart”. Rosa reveals that Stella is a big layer. She lies for everything, even to live in the society. I think Rosa is a true person, because she didn’t care about the society. She smashed her store, because she thought people don’t care about the reality. They just live to show off.  She even left Stella, because she didn’t want Stella to say that she takes care of her. Rosa says that she can’t pretend that she is living a very happy life and forgot her past. So, if she can’t why she would do things according to Stella. Stella is a layer herself without any true identity. It was Stella who accused Magda of being an illegal child, even though she knew that she was not. Rosa was engaged to Andrzej and Magda was their legal daughter. Stella knows everything, but she always finds way to put false accusations on Magda. Rosa writes to Madga, “Stella has a naturally pornographic mind; she can’t resist dreaming up a dirty sire for you”. By reading this letter, I think Stella is not a person to trust. She can’t keep up her own identity. She changes and lies to live. On the other side Rosa, she the one who lives for herself, her daughter, and with her past. This letter really forced me to look at Rosa in a different way. Now, I don’t think Rosa punishes herself by living alone. I think she lives a life that makes her feel comfortable, not guilty. She kept up with her own identity, which makes her a unique person.