Fun Home #2

Bechdel uses many pictures to depict the minimal text in her story, Fun Home.  I think that the most blatant purpose of her pictures is to show the facial expressions of the characters.  I think that without the pictures, the story would not have the same feel, and the reader would not get the same understanding of the family as they do with the pictures.  Smiles are few and far between in the pictures, and most of the time it shows nothing but solemn and stern faces.  Also, I think that the details of the faces often show that the characters are thinking to themselves.  Bechdel does this to give the reader the feeling that the family is distant, and rarely express their emotions with each other.  Sometimes, she incorporates the characters thoughts in the pictures to show just what they were thinking.  I think that Bechdel uses shading mainly to show character's emotions in the background.  She uses darker colored clothing and shading on the characters who may not be the emphasis of the picture, but whose emotions are important to the reader's understanding of the story.  I also think that there are a number of things pointed out by the lighting of the story, such as objects or events that reinforce what the text is saying.  The tidiness of the house is often exhibited, as is the perceieved, "traditionalistic" functioning of the family.  I think Bechdel also uses silhouettes to describe peoples' emotions without even showing their faces.  Bechdel does a tremendous job with complimenting her text with sketches that truly capture the emotions and thoughts of the characters in the story.

Fun Home

  Right off the bat, the reader can tell that Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel is different than most any book that they have ever read, and looked at, before.  In the first chapter, it is clear that the father is the voice of the household in the story, although he does not take on the traditional male roles.  He was a clean freak, and it seems he took more pride in his house and what it was furnished with than his children and what they had accomplished.  The mother seems to have a limited role early on in this story, and I think that this will greatly affect all of the children's personality in this book.  It also briefly touches on a deep, dark secret that the father has.  In one scene, while the family is in a church, the text reads, "But would an ideal husband and father have sex with teenage boys?" as the father is looking at the young boys in church.  I think that this is symbolic because they are in church, which shows that the father must not have any regard for standards and morals, and truly does have a deep, dark secret.  I do not think that this secret was well hidden, however, as his children have little connection to him despite the tasks that he makes them do in order to keep his house perfect. One part of the story describes a scene where one of the children is forced to kiss their father goodnight, and can only seem to muster an awkward kiss on the knuckles, that was followed by running out of the room in an awkward situation.  The father seemed to never even be there at all, even when he was there.  The children seem to have a poor relationship with him, and I think that it will affect their personalities for the rest of the story.

Timeline of Minerva

1938 - Minerva goes to school.

- Minerva eventually meets Lena, a girl who has been taken in as a mistress by the Trujillo.  She tells Minerva that she is mistreated, and that the Trujillo is corrupt and devestating.  This startles Minerva, and makes her want to do something.

-Minerva starts to attend secret, anti - government meeting behind the backs of her parents.

1949- Minerva meets Lio, and starts to spend time with him

- Finds out that her father has been holding on to notes that Lio had been writing her.

- Goes to the Trujillo discovery dance, and slaps the dictator.

- Her father goes to jail

- Minerva is allowed to go to college to study law

1957 - Minerva graduates from college, but is prohibited from practicing law by the Trujillo

- Gets married to Manolo, and they begin to become revolutionaries.

-They are taken to jail in 1959, and get out on house arrest in 1960

- Refuses to accept her pardon, and is later released

- Gets killed visiting husband in jail, trying to get him out

Blog for 3/14 Q#7

I think that Alvarez is trying to accomplish a sense of true sacrifice in the best interest of one's country, as well as the people who live in it.  She uses a true story, and fictionalizes it, in order to give the reader a sense of just how brave and righteous these girls were.  Once Minerva finds out about her friend Lina, and what the Trujillo had done to her, she immediately wants to take action.  This shows that she has an extreme sense of empathy for her country, as well as her friend, once she saw the true power that the Trujillo possessed, and that empathy made her take action against them.  I think that Alvarez is trying to say that the truth must always be revealed for someone to be true with themselves.  I think that this is made evident on the pilgrimage, where Chea finds out that she has been cheated on.  I think that this exemplifies Alvarez's theme of truth to ones' self, because they go on the pilgrimage to find themselves again, because it felt like all faith was being lost between the family.  This also exemplifies Alvarez's theme of search for self.  I think that by this she is saying although she found out something negative in her life, the important part was that she looked for thr truth, and got it; so she does not have to live in ignorance, as most of their country is under the rule of the Trujillo.  I think that the justice theme is the most evident, as it also ties into the roles of women throughout the book.  These young women spend their lives trying to justify themselves as women, and Dominican citizens with rights, and hearts.  All of the women in the novel, at one point or another, step out of their "role in society" to make a statement and benefit their country.

blog for 3/10

I think that Julia Alvarez, in part I of, In the Time of Butterflies, is trying to provoke a sense of good vs. evil, in nearly all of the characters.  Each member of the family is religious, but most have already questions their own faith at one point or another.  Minerva experienced, second-hand, the power and corruption in the Trujillo regime from her friend Lina being  taken as a mistress, and knows that she will have to take action at one point or another, whether it will be a faithful one or not.  Patria also questions her own faith as she had always been one of the more religious people in the family, but finds what she thinks is love while washing a mans' feet, Pedrito Gonzales.  She gives herself up to him, and eventually has children.  As both her and Minerva seem to be losing some of their faith, her third child is a miscarriage, and is born dead.  This petrifies Patria, and she seemed to have lost all of her faith.  So, Chea takes them on a pilgrimage to Higuey, which showed her that her husband is unfaithful to her.  Also, the father is a heavy drinker, however, he seems to be a caring, generous, and level-headed person, which I think is also an example of  questioning faith, as drinking is sacreligious, yet he seems to be one of the more stable, and well-rounded characters so far in the book.  I think that a lot more will come where characters must make the decision whether to be faithful or not, whether to themselves, or their religion.

Emotional Creature Q #1

Throughout, I am an Emotional Creature, Eve Ensler uses a number of contradictions in her writing.  I think that she creates a rhetorical environment in the readers' head to give them a sense of what the women in the monologues truly experience.  She uses this through female identities to depict scenarios that women from just about every background are faced with every day.  As a male, I think that this truly reveals how different the way women perceive things may be. The questions that women ask themselves every day, no matter what situation they are on, vary greatly from those of males, especially in today's society.  I think that the peer pressures for girls have  been heightened recently because of the feeling of body perception is stereotypically linked to a girls' popularity.  I think that there is also peer pressure between males growing up, but the extent of them is nowhere near the current, "false," expectations that girls think that they are required to fulfill.  I think the more mature women in the monologues learn to deal with these pressures more internally than the younger ones, as they realize that these "expectations," are fabricated by the social hierarchy that young women deal with today.

question #5

Audience reaction is a major part of The Vagina Monologues, given her style of writing and topic choice.  I think that this is so crucial in this book, as well as any other piece of literature with the purpose of raising awareness, because, in order to raise somebody's awareness and truly get their attention, you must expose them to something that they are not used to seeing in a certain light.  I think she is successful in doing this, and, won't allow the reader to read the book without having a reaction to it simply because it is so easy to get a reaction from a topic that is so concealed in today's society.  Also, I think that to have any effect in society, this book must manufacture a strong reaction to have any success whatsoever.  I think that Ensler intentionally pushes the readers out of their comfort zones for the same reason.  For this book to be as gripping and raw as it is, it must be displayed in a way that is unfamiliar to its' readers.  This forces the reader to remember much more about the topic than would anything ever read in any health class or textbook, about the same topic.  Personally the monologue that resonated the most strongly with me was the one with the girl who had no vagina.  Her father took had a sort of awkward reaction, and told her that they would fix it, and that she would have a great vagina.  I think that this resonated the most strongly with me because it is a real scenario that could happen to any father, or mother, and I would not know how to handle, or perhaps even talk to my daughter about it.  I think that this monologue probably hit the closest to home for most male readers, because it is the only one, in my opinion that males can even slightly relate to. Having said that, the fact that this book was as gripping and informative as it was truly proves all of the questions asked of this post, and that Ensler's style really does have a strong affect on the reader.