Final Post

This class has been so helpful to me in various ways. Woman’s literature has helped me to open up to different aspects of a woman’s life. Her pain, her suffering, her happiness, her pride, her shame, and even her vagina. We read several books that I loved and simply couldn’t put down. Our class also went through books that sometimes had hard concepts to grasp or different writing styles that were so extreme from the last books we read. Not only could I relate to these women in the books, but it helped me realize a lot about myself as I read. These novels were able to pull me in and with it, they took my heart and soul and I’ve even kept a few books on my book shelf so I can read them whenever I desire.

My favorite book by far was Eve Enslers “The Vagina Monologues”. I read it one Sunday morning from cover to cover. I was literally glued to my couch and my roommate actually thought there was something wrong with me. I don’t usually like to read many books but because of the content and the depth of this book, it kept me hooked. Each story was a part of me and as each page was flipped, I was all ready to read the next one! My favorite part of this novel was the empowerment of this statement on page 51 “The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure. The clitoris is simply a bundle of nerves: 8,000 nerve fibers, to be precise. That’s a higher concentration of nerve fibers than is found anywhere else in the body, including the fingertips, lips, and tongue, and it is twice…twice…twice the number in the penis. Who needs a handgun when you’ve got a semiautomatic?” I love how she uses these words to compare women’s pleasure to men. Women are such complex and amazing creatures and this book especially taught me how to embrace my femininity.

Another book I couldn’t keep my hands and eyes off was another one of Eve Enslers novels, “I am an Emotional Creature”. This book unlike the vagina monologues, which embraces femininity, shows a corrupted and scared side to being a woman. The poem in this novel that portrayed this fear of being different the most was the poem “DON’T”. The first page of this poem is a list of things that this girl is not allowed to do because of either what her father or mother said what society thinks she should do or how her skewed version of herself won’t allow her to do. However this poem also relieves her “don’ts” and seems as though there is a good future for her and that she has faith in what is to come. “I want to read so I can read the Koran. Read the signs in the street. Know the number of the bus I’m supposed to take when I one day leave this house.”

All throughout this class, we have focused on many different feelings and words to describe the content and emotion of these novels. I believe there have been quite a few repeating topics that seem to sew this whole semester’s worth of reading together. There was pride with “Precious” and with “The Vagina Monologues”. There was fear, rejection and shame with “The Shall”, “I am an Emotional Creature” and even “Fun Home”. There were also many novels that didn’t fit into the categories of the feelings of the other novels such as “In the time of the butterflies”. This was the most complex book I have ever read but it definitely made me appreciate the lives of the Garcia sisters and also appreciate the choppy writing style of the author. There have been so many different ways of interpreting because there have been so many writing styles and this class has truly opened my eyes to new ways of reading and for that I will be forever grateful.

Innocence?

In the beginning, this novel is all about keeping innocence alive; however, I can't help but to wonder if that innocence was really kept. As a child, Allison is in a constant state of shame and doubt. She looks at her life compared to what it could have been. She compares herself to her surroundings, "Pretty girls in my high school had good hair, curled or straightened to fit the fashion, had slender hips in tailored skirts, wore virgin pins on the right side or knew enough not to wear such tacky things at all." (36).

However, as she grows older, she realizes that she doesn't need to make these silly comparisons. She doesn't need to hide her innocence. "What is the story I will not tell? The story I do not tell is the only one that is a lie. It is the story of the life I do not lead, without complication, mystery, courage, or the transfiguration of flesh." (71). She now notices the significance of being herself.

Not only does she learn to accept her for who she is, but she learns to let go of her troubled past, especially with men. All her life, her surroundings have prevented her from being free. She had to keep the innocence. Once she picks up a gun, she not only feels liberated, she also in a sense gets revenge on her step farther by imagining him in front of her. He abused her and she couldn't relieve those built up emotions until she was able to do something she was told never to do, something out of the "ordinary". "Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that change when it comes cracks everything open." (48). She was able to lead her own happy life without restrictions and that is truly breaking innocence.

Significance of Pictures

It's one thing to explain your life through words but it's another to portray your past through pictures. I believe that Dorothy Allison, the author of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure captures the essence of this portrayal. Allison’s mother was corrupted at such a young age, she tries to prevent her daughter from the same life she lead. However, throughout the pictures and the stories told in this novel, its evident that her mothers restraints on her only causes further rebellion.

Next to a picture of Allison's aunt dot and her mother, it reads, "The women I loved the most in the world horrified me. I did not want to grow up to be them. I made myself proud of their pride, their determination, their stubbornness, but every night I prayed a mans prayer, lord save me from them do not let me become them"(38). This shows that although that she looks up to these women, she still realizes they are trapped in their own sorrow.

Allison wants to escape the norm of her town; getting pregnant with a poor no good man with out a job and basically being a "baby maker". In class, we analyzed a picture on page 33. How once these women were beautiful and glorious. Only for a mere second. "We were all wide-hipped baby machines. We were all wide-hipped and predestined. Wide-faced meant stupid. Wide hands marked workhorses with dull hair and tired eyes..." Allison realizes that she doesn't want to be just another generation of the women in her family, so she decides to take a different route and go to college.

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