· Identify a section or passage from your memoir that would be worth analyzing through one of the lenses. Summarize this section briefly, in a sentence or two.
· Then analyze this section or passage through one of the lenses in a few sentences.
· Close your blog post with a lens question related to your analysis, that any classmate—no matter which memoir they are reading, can respond to. (Examples: Is anyone else starting to feel that their memoirist’s memory is unreliable? Is anyone else’s memoirist struggling with his/her performance of gender role norms? Is anyone else seeing examples blurred lines between the “colonizer” and the “colonist”?)
· Respond to at least 2 of your peers’ posts.
Alice Sebold uses Gender Lens to describe how her rapist overpowered her. She describes how he beat her up, threatened to kill her if she didn't follow his instructions.
ReplyDelete“People think a woman stops fighting when she is physically exhausted, but I was about to begin my real fight, a fight of words and lies and the brain” P.6
This quote is significant because she obviously is putting her life in the line, she knows that this male who is after her has a knife but she doesn't stop fighting. She tries to prove that he isn't the only one with power. She tries to prove that just because she is a women- doesn't mean she can't fight, but she fails to prove herself- she gives in because of her own exhaustion of the amount of hits and hair pulling he did to her.
Does anyone's memoirists try to prove that male or female both have power not just one gender?
-Tiffany Da Silva
Yes, in my novel, Eat Pray Love, the author shows signs of having power from the fact that she faces her fear and gets a divorce after spending 8 years with this man. Her husband also shows signs of having power when he is arguing with his wife.
DeleteYes, in my novel The Glass Castle, the author tells her father to give up drinking for her 10th birthday even if she was afraid to speak up and point out her dads flaws.
DeleteIn my novel, because the character follows the bible literally, sometimes gender bias kicks in when some of the teachings give men power over women.
DeleteIn the Glass Castle Jeannette Walls uses the Gender Lens to describe part of the relationship between her father and mother in a Satirical and Metaphorical way. way. Her mother says "I always carry my children longer than most women...Lori was in my womb for fourteen months." (Pg. 42). Jeannette's father argues with her mother, telling her that she's being illogical. He was right about the baby but the evidence can serve as a metaphor of how some men dismiss what women inform them about, because they think that all women are wrong. Satirically the scene captures the fact that just because a man tells a woman she's wrong doesn't mean he doesn't want to believe she's right sometimes she actually is wrong.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone find that Satire plays a role within the Gender Lens of their memoir?
-Alexandria J.
No I haven't come across any sort of Satire playing a role within the Gender Lens in my memoir.
DeleteI agree in that memoir it shows how the father is the one deciding whats right and whats not, and only believes in his own beliefs and disregarding everyone else's.
DeleteFather Breuninger was a pastor at the community's' church. His son Paul murdered a lady and was sent to jail. Father Breuninger blamed his age, the drugs, and himself, but he couldn't blame his own son for what he had done in the past. I'm not saying that this goes for everyone but society usually believes that if you are religious, then you may not have a "cold heart". You are to be seen as a delightful person who doesn't murder anyone.
Delete- Tiffany Da Silva
Although it's not exactly satire, my narrator's father was found to be mocking and disdaining certain "feminine" behaviors such as her mother watching soap operas and advertisements for weight loss.
DeleteIn the novel Eat Pray Love the author uses the psychoanalytic lens when she describes her past life. "...for the forty-seventh consecutive night...I was sobbing. Sobbing so hard,in fact, that a great lake of tears and snot was spreading before me...I don't want to be married anymore. I was trying so hard not to know this, but the truth kept insisting itself to me."Her unconscious mind consistently tells her how she is unhappy in her married life and doesn't want to be with the man that she is with. This is evident of the psychoanalytical lens because after being with the man with whom she wants a divorce for 8 years the author after 6 years of marriage realizes that she wants to be independent and wants a divorce. It seems as if she is overwhelmed with her married life and wants to be free from all ties and bounds. After getting a divorce she begins to complete her life by seeing other men in place of her ex-husband. She does this to not feel lonely and alone. But in reality she is really desperate, lonely and lost.
ReplyDeleteIs the main character behaviors reflect that she/he is lost in her/his own world, and in search of who she/he is?
Yes definitely in my memoir Alice is lost, she tells herself that she doesn't know who she is nor does she understand herself after she was raped. She doesn't have the confidence she use to have, she thinks she is ugly because of the marks and cuts that are shown on her face but she wants her friends and family to tell her that she doesn't look bad at all, that she looks perfect when in reality she looks beaten up.
Delete- Tiffany Da Silva
Yes this is so true! just like what Tiffany said In my memoir "Lucky by Alice Sebold, the main character is lost and she doesn't really know how to fix herself, she sees herself as someone who is scared for life and their is nothing that she could do to fix it. I think that if she didn't have these scars/cuts on her body she could help herself, but she cannot she is helpless!
DeleteIn "Lucky," Alice Sebold is not lost. I disagree with Armand and Tiffany. She knows exactly who she is now, she let her experience of being raped define her and now she acts as "any normal person would who has been raped."
DeleteMy character seems depressed and lost because of unfortunate love events that has happened to her previously.
DeleteMy character doesn't seem lost but she seems like she is trying to help her mother who seems lost.
DeleteMy character feels trapped and feels like she is restricted so she desires to be free.
DeleteIn the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, the Father teaches his kids physics, the planets, stars, the solar system, geology and to never be afraid. However, he is also an alcoholic. He comes home after losing many jobs, drunk and unstable. He threatens to beat his wife, and at times will even come as close as taking a knife and almost stabbing her. The gender lens is used here because it shows how overpowering the father is in the household. The mother is portrayed as weak because she always gives in. She forgives him from time to time, even if he goes crazy and almost kills her. One time, he even tried to push her out the window when arguing with her about money. '' I didn't push her,'' Dad protested.''I swear to God I didn't. She jumped. He was standing over mom, holding out his hands, palms up pleading his innocence.'' This is not true because she was pleading for help and yelling for someone to help her.It is evident that the father carries out most of the decisions and is the dominant one in the family and he is a man.
ReplyDeleteIs it up to the community as a whole that makes the decision on who holds the power or is it just part of society already?
I feel that in my story, society and its power is being displayed as one that advocates for justice and "correct" behavior. The narrator's mother and father were drug addicts and therefore indulged in numerous activities that are deemed "illegal." It is to question whether this power to decide right versus wrong is actually the true right and wrong.
DeleteHow does being other affect the way the protagonist interacts with others?
DeleteMemoir: Breaking Night
ReplyDeleteLines: "On the day Ma was to be sentenced, she brought with her two cartons of cigarettes and a roll of quarters, certain that she would do time. But in a move that surprised everyone in the courthouse, right down to Ma's lawyer, the judge looked her over with pity, then merely ordered probation and called the next case"
In using the gender lens, I see very clearly how the narrator's mom being a female aided in her bailing after she went to the prison with her boyfriend for fraud. Because she was a pregnant woman who was needed by her children, she was pitifully released from prison while her boyfriend was sentenced for 3 years.
Question: Is anyone else seeing that their character is being treated differently, particularly favored or pitied for his/her gender?
In my memoir "Lucky by Alice Sebold she is treated differently because of her gender, while she was raped she was seen as helpless because she was a woman so it was shown that she could be taken advantage of very easily.
DeleteIn the memoir "Lucky," Sebold is treated differently. In her house hold, everyone tries 10 times harder to please her when in reality, if she was never raped, her family wouldn't care so much.
DeleteHow does the gender lens change when age come to affect the way gender roles are percieved?
DeleteHow can being treated based off general roles affect who you decide to be?
DeleteAlexandria J.
In my memoir "Lucky" by Alice Sebold, the gender lense is definitely something that plays a big role in our memoir. Gender is something that our book has a lot to do with. In the memoir takes advantage of her because she is a woman and woman are seen as weak and helpless. She explains what he made her do in order for her to stay alive. This is shown in the book when “Since then I've always thought that under rape in the dictionary it should tell the truth. It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything.” This concludes that rape does not define the truth and that she was destroyed by the man, rape is much more than "forcible intercourse" She probably cannot see herself any other way now other than being used and hurt.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: In your memoirs is anyone else's character shown as vulnerable and helpless, and is there a character that overpowers the other?
In "Breaking Night" the author is bullied by her older sister and tricked into doing humiliating things because she doesn't know any better and her parents aren't great role models for her so she seems helpless sometimes.
DeleteAlice Sebold's memoir, "Lucky," talks about being raped as a college student and how her life was morphed into something she never expected. One chapter shows us what happened immediately after she was raped. She was walking home to her dorm, with her clothing all dirty and cuts everywhere on her body. All of the college campus students were partying and having fun and saw her coming from a distance. They saw the condition she was in and knew what had happened to her. They pointed and starred. This made her feel different. This is just like Lucan's theory, the mirror theory. An individual’s external appearance was what caused someone to be categorized in a specific group. Sebold was put it the other group as she was walking home after being raped. She looked different then everyone else and she did not blame them either. She put herself in that group too, there was no doubt she was a pariah at her college campus. This was more than enough to cause her to change her normal behavior to fit one projected through her "other" label.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to group yourself rather then having others group you?
DeleteI think that you can group yourself by inserting and involving yourself in groups that you feel that you belong to
DeleteWell in the memoir "Breaking Night" by Liz Murray, the author groups herself based on the interest of other individuals (e.g. her father). That being said, it can be asserted that the influence society plays on an individual can quite often be too strong to get out of.
Delete"I wish Giovanni would kiss me. Oh but there are so many reasons why this would be a terrible idea. To begin with, Giovanni is ten years younger than I am, and- like most Italian guys in their twenties- he still lives with his mother. These facts alone make him an unlikely romantic partner for me given that I am a professional American woman in my mid-thirties, who had just come through a failed marriage and a devastating, interminable divorce, followed by a passionate love affair that ended in a sickening heartbreak."
ReplyDeleteThere was an aspect of a post-colonial lens present. She has a feeling of a cultural other being that Giovanni was Italian and she was American. How because Italians given to the personality of Giovanni were romantics and able to love but Americans, her for example, go through divorces and many love affairs.
Do our backgrounds and cultures sometimes prevent us from socially interacting with different people?
DeleteHow does the post colonial lens differ when it relates to ethnicity vs. Race?
DeleteHow does gender play a role in how we interact with each other?
DeleteQuestion: Does your personality or stereotypes define your ethnic group?
ReplyDelete"People plucked out the parts that fit their agenda, whether that agenda was to the right or left. Not me. I thought with some naivete, I would peel away the layers of interpretation and find the true bible underneath."
ReplyDeleteA.J Hopes to peel away the social layers of the bible, and word for word interpret what it means. Throughout the book there are many instances of gender bias, or gender interpretation due to A.J literally following the bible. The bible has certain ideas about gender the A.J has to follow, such as not being allowed to sit on furniture his wife has sat on while she is menstruating.
Question: Does the bible encourage or put forward gender disparity?
What religion wouldn't have gender roles or disparity?
Delete-Alexandria J.
The beginning of A. J. Jacobs' novel "The Year of Living Biblically" the author looks at himself at the end of tye journey he has gone through during his experience writing the novel. He notes in the passage I've chosen, that he has grown a massive, unruly beard and describes the "suffering" that he's had due to the beard. Understanding the passage through a gender lens, there's not much to pull. However, this close identification of his beard could suggest that he has achieved a certain connection to his masculinity in the time he has spent conducting his experiment. He begins by identifying himself with something that is a significant gender marker. This could foreshadow the importance of gender appearing in the novel, and how much his relationship with masculinity will affect his experiences. It could also imply that masculinity will become more important as he tries to follow the rules of the bible. Is anyone else noticing their author gender themselves with gender marker?
ReplyDeleteWell in the memoir "Breaking Night" by Liz Murray, the author tries to mark herself with traits that favor the opposite gender. To fit into her father's standards, the author alienates anything that society associates with girly. For example, instead of playing with Barbie dolls as a child, she played with trucks that her father brought her.
DeleteAt the start of the novel the author talks about how through writing this book he has develop a beard. Also how he can now connect with those who also have beards
ReplyDeleteMy question is whether the novel will follow these gender roles as a point of view to view others?
Through looking from a gender lens one can see how society's gender roles affect how the author sees others.
In my novel, Alison uses Psychoanalytical lens to represent how she feels about herself. "I'm the Sparta to his Athenian." She uses this to compare herself to her father and how she sees herself when she looks at her father. The reason my main character does this is to show how different she and her father are. Examples of how they're different is shown how different their styles are. How Alison is more modern while her father is more victorian.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel "Breaking Night" by Liz Murray, the mother tells her child (the author) to keep away from these certain men who could potentially cause harm to girls (and she says this because the men use dirty words with her).
ReplyDelete"Ma always called them dirty old men and said that I should stay far away, because they think dirty thoughts and would do dirty things to little girls if given the chance."
Through the Post - Colonial lens, we can see that the mother automatically "others" this group of men as dangerous to keep her girl out of harms way.
Is it alright to "other" people when it is for one's safety?
In the memoir "Breaking Night" by Liz Murray, the author's father ridiculed anything "girly" and gave his daughter toys that boys would play with like a truck. Through the gender lens we can see that the author acts like a boy around her father because she wants to be accepted by him. Will the author follow the gender roles society has set in place or do what she likes?
ReplyDeleteIn the novel Eat, Pray, Love ,the main character tries to find herself. In a way she feels trapped in her marriage and wants out. He wants to start a family but is she truly ready for that responsibility yet? Elizabeth wants to travel and explore her options. This passage is seen through a psychoanalytical lens.
ReplyDeleteWould she be happier if things were the way they were before?
Delete“Naked woman + Right hand = Happy Happy Joy Joy” page 26
ReplyDeleteLooking at the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” through a gender lens, it's clear that junior feels open about his sexual preference/activity. Junior goes on about how he spends hours upon hours in the bathroom with magazines that contain pictures of naked movie stars. He further states that he talks about it because everybody does it, and everybody likes it, and boasts about how if there was a professional masturbators league, he would get drafted.Does anyone else feel like their memoirist is comfortable talking about their sexual preference/activity?