Ai's CRUELTY

Children are often born to be love and care. Mother is the one who always wants to have the best for their children. Hurting the child will be the last thing that any mother would do. And that was happened unexpectedly in the poem “The Child Beater” by Ai.

Child Beater

Outside, the rain, pinafore of gray water, dresses the town

and I stroke the leather belt,

as she sits in the rocking chair,

holding a crushed paper cup to her lips.

I yell at her, but she keeps rocking;

back, her eyes open, forward, they close.

Her body, somehow fat, though I feed her only once a day,

reminds me of my own just after she was born.

It’s been seven years, but I still can’t forget how I felt.

How heavy it feels to look at her.

I lay the belt on a chair

and get her dinner bowl.

I hit the spoon against it, set it down

and watch her crawl to it,

pausing after each forward thrust of her legs

and when she takes her first bite,

I grab the belt and beat her across the back

until her tears, beads of salt-filled glass, falling,

shatter on the floor.

I move off. I let her eat,

while I get my dog’s chain leash from the closet.

I whirl it around my head.

O daughter, so far you’ve only had a taste of icing,

are you ready now for some cake?

 

This is the most difficult and challenging poem that I had ever read. When saying this, I do not mean about it context but the language and the voice that the speaker had used in this poem. In term of the discourse analysis, the poet is introducing the unhealthy relationship between the mother and her child. But it feels so weird and can be troublesome by calling this a relationship. In this poem, I can’t barely find any love that the mother has for her daughter but instead the odd attitudes that she has toward her little girl. Unlike any other women, the narrator in the poem has treated the little girl very badly. This is very sad to think of, but the mother is treated her daughter in an inhumane way, the daughter is treated as if a very troublesome, burdening pet. She doesn’t care for her; she beats her and only gives her one meal a day.  She doesn’t give her a nice meal but treated her like a dog: “…get her dinner bowl. I hit the spoon against it, set it down and watch her crawl to it …” and even more, she beats her while a girl is having her meal “I grab the belt and beat her across the back”. This is very horrible. I don’t know whether something had happened to her while she has her baby, but she hates a child very much. In her voice, I can feel the hatred that she has and it still exists as she claimed that she could not forget it even though it has past seven years already: “It’s been seven years, but I still can’t forget how I felt. How heavy it feels to look at her.”

The extent of abuse, anger and resentment that she has toward her daughter could be from the experience she has from giving birth. As she described about the physical appearance the mother experience after she had her child, “Her body, somehow fat, though I feed her only once a day, reminds me of my own just after she was born.” She may have refers to the heavy burden feeling from encountering the mother responsibility, such as taking care of the child.

Ai’s poem gives audiences the most awful and frightening feeling.

 

                                  

                                                                                                                                                

Can you ever forgive???

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Have you ever experience anything or anyone that could have terrified you in your life? Especially those around you and had close relationship with you, for example, your love one?

If that happen, can you ever forgive the person? I know it must be very difficult for one to decide, also it need to depend on what situation is it?

In Rebecca Brown stories, she often makes her readers feel terrified. Her works is very brutal that it covers with a kind of dark beauty and perhaps a sense of humor also. Here I want to introduce you to this story “Forgiveness”.

In her story “Forgiveness”, Brown has speaking of the terrible relationship between couples. I don’t know if this is a relationship between a man and a woman, or a woman and a woman, but it is a very horrible story after all. The narrator in the story has to paid very much for what she has said, just to shows that she is very care for her partner and will give everything she has to her partner if in need. Her arm was cutting off just to prove for her words and their relationship, “I had the feeling you didn’t think I would really do it, that you were testing me to see if I would, and I wanted you to know I would” (1432). I think this is very crazy, very horrible. There is so many different way to prove their trust, care and even love in a relationship, I don’t know why the author thought about this idea of cutting off the arm and then feel sad after all this had been done.

 And at the end, the narrator just feels that she has been betray or so that she could not believe in what her partner has told her, “that I would never believe you again, never forget what I know of you, never forget what you’ve done to me, what you will do. I’ll never believe the myth of forgiveness between us”(1436). I don’t understand why the author had described this relationship in a very deep emotion, all of the trust, feeling, care and love but then at the end, it was a disappointment and distrust that the narrator could never forgive it. This is very confusing.

* * * Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar. "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English". New York, N.Y: Norton & Company, Inc 2007, (1432-1436).

The Waltz ... Dorothy Parker

I wonder how women think about men, and if they want to talk about men, how do they feel? Before we get to that point, let me remind you that women were treated very badly in the past. Since the beginning of society, men were over control of women by strong physical activities. Men were known as leaders in the household and the “breadwinners”. Women’s role was to stay home and do their work, plus to obey their husbands and reared their children. It was best considered as “The Cult of True Womanhood”.

However, women did not satisfied with it, as time passed by, women got higher education and became knowledgeable, and they requested and fought for their right.

Most of the women were not afraid of men; they thought and described how they feel about men. For example, in “The Waltz” by Dorothy Parker, the author concentrates on describing about her hatred relation to a man. There must be a major problem that had happened between them, that make the girl hated him so much. That she could have done anything to ended him.

“I don’t want to dance with him. I don’t want to dance with anybody. And even if I did, it wouldn’t be him, … I wonder if what I’d better do – kill him this instant, with my naked hands, or wait and let him drop in his traces” (490-491). It shows that this woman had a very bad feeling toward this man, when she is describing him; you hear only hatred in her voice. And this did not end soon, she even goes further saying that: “I hated him the moment I saw his leering, bestial face. And here I’ve been locked in his noxious embrace for the thirsty-five years this waltz has lasted. Is that orchestra never going to stop playing? Or must this obscene travesty of a dance go on until hell burns out?” (492-493)

* * * Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar. "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English". New York, N.Y: Norton & Company, Inc 2007, (490-493).

The Authority of Experience: Essays in Feminist Criticism (benefit from what you know)

“The Authority of Experience” by Arlyn Diamond and Lee Edwards in 1977, is well known for the book that uses to teach something new, write something new and or read something new that you have experienced. It is true that one need to have an experience so they can tell the truth about it. In this case, it holds a strong merit in our society and literature. It helps one to write better because of the knowledge and experience that one has achieved individually.

Though you can try to write or make the story, but it will be very different. Everyone is different in the way they think, feel and experience live, so each individually has their own writing, teaching and reading skill. It doesn’t matter about race, gender or identity because it depends on each person’s experience. For example, in “Who’s Irish” by Gish Jen, the grandmother is describing her life and her perspective on her granddaughter life and compare her culture to the Irish culture. Even though she is Chinese, she can still tell the different between the Chinese and Irish. The grandmother relates her life and daughter’s story with a criticism because she sees her daughter’s overwhelmed life as resentful.  In the story the grandmother is still attached to her culture, her ideas and values not understanding her daughter’s different view of life. The influence of the western culture in her daughter has made her into a different type of person that does not support Asian ideas anymore especially when educating her children. Therefore it doesn’t matter what race a person is, as long as the author has experienced so he or she can write about what happened in their experience.

Another best example is “How is Feels to be Coloured Me” by Zora Neale Hurston. In her story, the author writes about how she was born and grown up being a colored girl. She talked about how being the black girl was like, and the struggle that she had overcome. Only who was in that situation could write it very well and detailed. She described that “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me” (360), only someone who has felt this unique discrimination could understand and write with their true feeling. Not only that, Zora also talks about the struggles that she has overcome. She talks about everyone reminding her of her past, and never letting her forget about things that had happened, “Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves” (358). Whose place is it to tell her how to feel, or how to deal with her struggles? No one can make up such a story if they had not experienced it before.

"I remember the very day that I became colored"

* Note: for "How is Feels to be Coloured Me" by Zora Neale Hurston, can either be view by the link provided or "The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English" by Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar, 2007. New York, N.Y: Norton & Company, Inc. (357-360). 

Barbie & Human = Relationship?

Do you like to play with Barbie? I know most of the girls like to play around with their Barbie when they were young. I remembered I had seen a little girl begged her mother to buy her a Hawaiian Barbie. Unlike them, I’m also a girl but hate Barbie and dolls. I did not play with it and afraid of it. I know this is very weird. I keep telling myself that it’s just a piece of plastic, though I felt haunted when I see it. I always avoid being close to it whenever I go to the stores.

I had been trying to get rid of that feeling but I could never success. However, I hated more and more after reading the story “A Real Doll” by A.M. Homes. In her story, A. M. Homes shows an absurdly relation between Barbie and an adolescent boy, Jenny’s brother, a girl who is Barbie’s owner. I was shocked when I was reading “A Real Doll”. In her story, Homes is giving a femaleness view through an image of Barbie. It is clearly presented in the writing. Barbie is portrayed as small and delicate, weak, helpless and controlled by others. Furthermore, she is portrayed as being physically sexual as well. From A.M. Homes’ perspective, Barbie’s physical experience of femaleness is through her sexuality. I wonder if A.M Homes was writing this story from her physical experience as a female and the abuse story line may be coming from the author’s own experience. She may be writing the story from her viewpoint on how women are viewed and treated in our society, how women have been classified by our culture.

In Homes' marvelously demented hands, Barbie talks audibly to the boy and the two become fast friends. They learn one another likes and dislikes; how Barbie hates it when Jenny, the boy's sister, chews on her plastic feet, for instance - and it hurts! Were Barbie human, her feet would be horribly deformed from so much girlish chewing!

Just as the two was seeing each other more often, they soon shared intimate secrets, dating between a Barbie and a boy turned out to romantically intense. And furthermore, they are sexually active as well. I was terrified and thought that the boy was crazy. I could not believe what I was reading.

Going back to the perspective of Barbie, I was very upset about her behavior. I don’t believe that women were so weak, and much helpless that she could not against other, and let people do whatever they like to her.  

Men & Women ... can they COMMUNICATE???

                                                    

                         

Both male and women often have conflict in their relationship. Different sex and gender, same to the roles and status in society always make men and women feel uncomfortable when communicate.

You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen, show clearly how women and men found difficulty when they get to the time of conversation. Tannen, a professor of sociolinguistic at Georgetown University and the author of this book, drew interest in women and men communication. She thus researched and studied about their communication beginning with childhood boys and girls learn different approaches to language and communication. In her research, Tannen believed: "that the differences between the communication styles of men and women go far beyond mere socialization, and appear to be inherent in the basic make up of each sex".

In male conversation, they usually talk about thing that they would do together. It was often started from harder to easily, come by with topics randomly jumping around. Tannen notes that men's conversations are focused on giving solutions with focusing on maintaining personal status. Men are also noted as seeking to establish or maintain dominance, as well as status, in their conversation manner. Though when talking with women, men didn’t share their feeling, they often gave advice and draw out solution. However, that is not what women want. Women, often look for intimacy and like to share their story and feeling.

Tannen notes that women talk to their friends openly, face to face, with connection and intimacy as the primary goals/reasons for communication. Women are then noted as being more equal minded in conversation, needing all participants to contribute to the conversation before decisions are made.

I think that is when they have conflict in their communication. Both men and women communication seem very different because of their style and understanding.

Comtemporary Women ...

Adrienne Rich 

"The moment of change is the only poem"

  

Adrienne Rich was born May 16, 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. She was the most well known writers for the women authors during the 19th century. She married Alfred Conrad, an economist at Harvard. After having three sons before the age of thirty, Rich gradually changed both her life and her poetry. The content of her work became increasingly confrontational - exploring such themes as women’s role in society, racism, and the Vietnam war. She broke away the tight verse forms and neat metric patterns that marked much of her early work to produce a free verse style. In 1970, Rich left her husband, who committed suicide later that year, "to do something very common, in my own way".

 
 It was in 1973, in the midst of the feminist and civil rights movements, the Vietnam War, and her own personal distress that Rich wrote Diving into the Wreck. She had a collection of exploratory and often angry poems, which garnered her the National Book Award in 1974. Rich first rejected the prize as an individual but later accepted the award on behalf of all women and shared it with her fellow nominees. Within this poem, Rich continued to explored both the exterior and interior self. 

 

"Diving into the Wreck" is an amazing adventure poem, in her poem, Adrienne is talking about her journey of life, she takes us on a voyage underwater, sea creatures, sunken treasure, dead bodies, and mysteries abound. Rich began by telling about her childhood as she goes about saying "first having read the book of myths" and "the ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner".  Then she is about to go on her journey by describing about the ocean and the creature that she has created: " the mermaid whose dark hair stream black, the merman in his armored body". I don't think there is a matter of what sex of the author is attributed in this poem, for she is talking about man and woman as the same time. Yet she did say that woman is little nervous and afraid of the man society for she is not use to it (mermaid dark hair - stream black), and man is more powerful, (merman in his armored body). Though she had overcome her experienced and become stronger, she can now become both: "I am she: I am he". 

Rich also went on to explore a lesbian relationship. She introduces lesbianism as a sense of desiring oneself, choosing oneself, primary intensity between women. She also represents some interesting perspectives on men as individual as a group. For example, in her work, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence", she discusses men as a group and generalize on their power and status in society. 

Adrienne Rich in her story “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” states that women were less than men in the term of physical and she also claimed that women were attached to men. They were very oppressed but that is reality. Men are: “control of law, theology, and science; or economic nonviability within the sexual division of labor”. She also  says, “Some of the forms by which male power manifests itself are more easily recognizable as enforcing heterosexuality on women than are others. "Yet each one I have listed adds to the cluster of forces within which women have been convinced that marriage and sexual orientation toward men are inevitable, even if unsatisfying or oppressive components of their lives”. She basically is stating that women are forced to be with men in this society whether they choose to or not due to the power and control that men hold in our culture.

Literary Authority, Interpretation and Sexual Politics & Literary Tradition

"Top Girls"  

Caryl Churchill

Before we get started, let view a little background about the author. Churchill was born in 1938, England. She was raised up in a family where her father was a political cartoonist, and her mother was a secretary, model and a minor film actress. This lead Churchill to attract in the field of literature and play. She began writing her plays while she was studying at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Even though, she was married and had three children, she could successfully in her writing career. Top Girls is one of the most important play that Churchill had accomplished. Attracted to plays and feminism in society, she often wrote about the role of women. In "Top Girls", she brought up women from history to present, from various region and culture together, they talked and shared their stories from being women.

Top Girls is a very interesting play, Churchill is very succeeded in using the voice of women to opening the feminist drama. In Top Girls play, it shows that women were very strong in making their decision, strong feminist ideas are shown to be the main theme. Some very strong women in the story are portrayed as being the household maker and the “bread winner”. For example, Marlene, the main character in the play was succeeded in her agency career. She could put away everything, and family just for her work. While she is hosting the dinner and invites her friends to the dinner, we explore more about these women experience of lives. 

These women came from different centuries and cultures, some were long-death and the others were from fictional, for example, literature or paintings. All of these women had made their own decisions that had completely changed their lives. To illustrate, Pope Joan, first was dressed as a boy so she could go to church and studied and later became the Pope. But not for long, Joan had an affair with a chamberlain, got pregnant and was stoned to death. In this play, the author shows very strong emotion and strong wordy, how the women were treated back then and how they felt about it. If it was written by a male author, I think it would be very different. I don’t think the male author would talk very much about the women lives, their families, love and relationship. Also I don’t think he would choose to talk about how the women were treated badly. While in this play, it seems like the women from the past century did not have any power, they fight hardly to get what they suppose to have, just like how Marlene is different from the other women. 

The Field of Women and Literature/Literary Traditions

 In many decades, people look at women as the housewives or maids, they never thought women could established books or being educated. The literary canon is a collection of the major artists and works which are recognized by English scholars. Could women works be considered as the literary canon? This is very important for the women writers because they had not been equally represented and had not won any writing awards. The best way to find out the answer for this question is by looking at these two poems: "Housewife" by Anne Sexton and "The Young Housewife" by William Carlos Williams". It is very interesting to know how these two authors describe about the women in the role of housewife. I believe you will have different experience when reading these poems because one was written by a female author and the other was written by a male author. Now, let check it out:

The Young Housewife At ten A.M. the young housewife moves about in negligee behind the wooden walls of her husband's house. I pass solitary in my car. Then again she comes to the curb to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I compare her to a fallen leaf. The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. William Carlos Williams

Housewife Some women marry houses. It's another kind of skin; it has a heart, a mouth, a liver and bowel movements. The walls are permanent and pink. See how she sits on her knees all day, faithfully washing herself down. Men enter by force, drawn back like Jonah into their fleshy mothers. A woman is her mother. That's the main thing. Anne Sexton

In William Carlos Williams, “The Young Housewife”, it offers an outsider’s perspective on the young housewife’s situation. In the poem, it stated clearly that he has been observing the young housewife for awhile. His intentions and thoughts however, are not as clear. Williams simply views the young housewife as a sexual object in her “negligee,” behind “her husband’s house.” He seems to care more about her appearance with his detailed description of her as, “shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of her hair.” He even states, “I compare her to a fallen leaf” and then proceeds to say, “The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves.” To some Williams is like most other men in that society, sexually objectifying the women, while also acting and feeling superior to them. Similar to how a leaf holds on to a tree for as long as it can but eventually gives into life and falls dying, the women is coming to terms with her life circumstances. The young housewife no longer tries to be her own person, “tucking in stray ends of hair.” Here in his poem, Williams shows a tenderness and understanding in him. But he also acknowledges that he too, like all the other men in society at the time, is part of the crushing and passing by of women’s hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Unlike Williams, Anne Sexton, “Housewife” wants to point out that the women are not actually married to the men but rather to their role of the wives and mothers. For many years, women were pictured as the house keepers. They were married to the men, so they could take care of the families and bear children for the husbands. Sexton seems to be describing women as property, another addition to the house.  These particular women are described as robotic and somewhat like a dog, “faithfully washing herself down.” These interpretations lead to the fact that back then women’s identities were seen through their care of the household. In this context, Sexton comes across as sarcastic, cruel and demeaning. On the other hand however, it is thought that Sexton is much more understanding and slightly empowering. Sexton acknowledges that being a housewife is a very important and hard task and continues to point out the inner strength in women when she says, “A women is her mother. That’s the main thing.” I wonder if women are belonging to literary tradition or canon from the men view, as well as the women view.