(Late) The Women

     I think a strong theme in this book is the women in Dorothy Allison's family and how they influenced her to be the woman she is today.  If you look at the picture on page 33 of the women in her family you can see that they all have a kind of scowl on their faces.  They look tough.  They are dressed roughly and unfeminine.  I think this look that they have in this photo is because of the lives they all lived.
  I think a lot of the way that the women lived the way they did is because of the influence of men in their lives.  If you look at Allison's mother she got pregnant as a teenager and the guy left her.  This is a similar story for most of the relatives in her family.  At an early age she learned to just deal with the way men were and to live with it rather than go against the grain.  On page 35 it says, "When she found me once, red-faced and tearful, brooding over rude boys who shouted insults and ran away, she told me to wipe my face and pay no attention."  In this line it could be making a connection to all the men who ran away and neglected there duties as fathers, brothers, and husbands and the way they treated these women when they were still around.  At this  young age Allison is learning to just deal with it.  As a human being there always shows the strains of just dealing with things and that is why the women look so worn and tired in that picture.
     How did this influence Allison's life?  Well she discovered the same kind of life from men.  She was raped by her step-father and her mother till the day she died wouldn't believe it.  She from the moment she was young knew she didn't want to end up like her mother, her aunt, and her relatives.  She says, "The women i loved most in the world horrified me.  I did not want to grow up to be them."
     I think a lot of this made her not want to love a man.  She didn't want to be used by a man so she fell in love with a woman.  She gained masculine traits to become strong.
     Although she tried to run away from the hurt men caused in her family she was already affected by a young age because of the rape.  You can tell because she went through a long process of coming to terms with it.  She slept with many women and was used by them.  Is this no different then the women in her family being treated badly by men?  However, I do find that she did do something different then the rest, and that is she turned her life around.  She was able to find happiness. This is is shown in  the picture of all the scowling women in contrast to her family photo with her son and partner is distinctly noticeable.  In her family photo she looks younger and happier then she ever did in most of the photos. She was able to piece it all together to build a desirable life for her and her family.