After reading all the pieces of literature for this class I found that there are many repetitive themes in all the books and short stories. That is the themes on relationships, their education, their bodies and how they view them, their self-identity, their progress in life, and how they express themselves. I'm going to focus on each topic and relate it to a book that expresses that theme the most and then tie it in to other happenings from the other books.
A theme that is unavoidable in a piece of women's literature is relationships. Whether they are good, bad, a family relationship, a romantic relationship, or just a relationship between them and other people it is present in women's literature. One book we have read this semester that focuses on relationships the most is "2 or 3 Things I know for sure" by Dorothy Allsion. In this book she has a hard time with the relationship between the men the women in her family got involved with. She struggles to find a reason for why the women in her family are so tough and sympathetic towards the men. They get used by the men who end up leaving them with a home and family to take care of. She even quotes in her book, "The women i loved most in the world horrified me. I did not want to grow up to be them." She was afraid of what happened to them in their bad relationships would happen to her. She didn't want to be barefoot and pregnant and supporting everything on her own. She saw how her aunts, her sisters, and even her own mother choose the wrong men to be around. She even was raped by someone her mother was in a relationship with. After everything she experienced with her families relationships she didn't want anything to do with them. She ended up sleeping around with women and getting into a bad habit and being bitter. However although this story shows that women have a tough time and not every relationship is great towards the end things start to become more positive. The book shows the signs of good and positive relationships as well. Allison ends up with a woman whom she loves and has a son. She has a happy family. She also gets in contact with her sister more and begins to have an understanding relationship with her. Through this piece of women's literature you can see all types of relationships and how all these relationships make who a women is and how she goes through life. You can also see this in "Push". Her mother and father were not good supporters. The sexually, physically, and mentally abused her and made her feel fat, stupid, and ugly. However, there were people like Ms. Rain and the students at the Each One Teach One that who helped her through everything so she could live a more positive life.
Education is another important theme in these books. I noticed that in a lot of these books education really made a difference in how each woman lived their life. The more a women knew about herself and the world the more she was able to place herself in the world and face her realities. You see this mostly in the book, "Push". Precious the main character starts out not being able to read or express herself because of it. She feels stupid and unable to do the things she wants to do. When she finally gets into the Each One Teach One to get her G.E.D she finally is able to put her life together. She is able to stand up to her mother who mentally, physically, and sexually abused her and didn't stand up for her when her "father" was raping her. She is able to come to terms with her childhood and come to how she is going to raise her children and live the rest of her life. I can also see this in, "In the Time of Butterflies". In this story the girls are well educated. Especially Minerva who wants to go to college to become a lawyer. I think without her knowledge of the world around her how would she have had the courage to stand up to Trujillo and stand up for what she believed was right.
When it comes to body image I have to use the book, "I Am an Emotional Creature". I want to use this piece of women's literature because it is a book for young women when this issue is above all others in their lives. Girls feel insecure and they view their bodies very negatively. All the poems and short stories are expressing how a girl feels about herself. They talk about body image as something that is a physical entity but also an emotional entity. In one of the poems, I am An Emotional creature it says, "I am an emotional creature. There is a particular way of knowing. It's like the older women somehow forgot. I rejoice that it's still in my body." Girls are still coming to terms with how they look and how they feel inside. They are wondering why they are having all these changes happening to their bodies and why it is causing them to be sensitive and more emotional. You can see this theme carried on in Eve Ensler's, "The Vagina Monologues." You can see how older women have a hard time coming to terms and loving their bodies even after their adolescent years. In the excerpt, "Because He Liked to Look at it" You can see a women who is struggling with herself because she feels overweight until one day a man comes along and wants to have sex with her and calls her beautiful. I think alot
I think a concern that everyone has not only women is find self-identity. Who are we? Is a question that many women ask today and have in the past. I think we can see this in the poetry by Naomi Shihab Nye's "19 Varieties of Gazelle." She is a Pakistan-American who struggled to find who she was as a Pakistani and an American. In this quote, "There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,a tree with the largest, fattest, sweetest figs in the world." You can see that she is trying to merge her two surroundings together and find who she is and where she belongs. She also has a strong theme of 9/11 in her book. You can see that she has a conflict with who she is around this time period and who others are. She mentions a guy who just gets out of prison and is ready to start a new life but knows nothing of the attacks. This guy is trying to find his identity as much as she is trying to hold on to hers. Another story you find this in is in Danticant's short stories in "Krick?Krack!" The women who traveled from Haiti to America found it very hard to adjust to a new type of life. They held onto beliefs from their life before they came to America, but are trying to find where they fit in this new land.
I think every women goes through a progression in their lives. There comes a point in time where we change as human beings and women from experiences we encounter. I believe "Fun House" shows this theme the most. She starts off as a little girl who knows that she is a tomboy and that her father is neat and tidy and likes things just so, but as she gets older realizes he was gay and was having affairs with young boys in his class. She finds this out through life and events that happen to her. She comes to the realization that she is lesbian and finds out her father was gay. She also learns small things like a man's anatomy when she helps her father get a certain tool when he was working on a naked dead guy at the funeral home. Her life just slowly progresses through out the book to meet a realization at the end of who she was and who her father was. You can also see this in "When the Emperor was Divine." The young girl and boy because of the experience they had in the internment camps made them change and develop new attitudes towards the world around them. Many women change and see the world differently do to their lives experiences.
I believe the theme of expression is the most important. Without relationships and education we would never learn, with out a good self-body image and an idea of our self-identities we wouldn't know who we were, and without progression we would never change and create new ideas. However, without expression we wouldn't be able to share any of this with the world. I believe the movie with the women in the penitentiary was a good end for the class. It tied up everything we were trying to tie up at the end with. The women talked alot about if their words could be heard and what they would want to say. All the women had stories they wanted to share and messages they wanted to instill on others before it was to late for them like it was for themselves. One women who was on drugs, became a prostitute, and then killed a 70 year old man because of her resentment towards the man who hurt her in her life showed her feelings in the video. Their was regret, guilt, and sorrow. She wanted to share her story so that maybe no one would have to live with the same shadow she is going to live with for the rest of her life. All these women through the process of bad relationships before prison, to the education they received in prison. Then they formed good relationships. Then they created a good body and self image for themselves, and they progressed to eventually they wanted to express how they felt about everything that had happened to them; to spread their message to other women out there so it won't happen to them. I think this whole chain is what this class was trying to tie together. How all of this forms a woman and how this process is evident in each book we read this semester.
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