their eyes were watching god

When I first started reading "Their eyes are watching god"  I did not think I would enjoy it as much as I did. I really did not like Janie through majority of the book, there was just something about her that I could not handle. Then once she had to pick either her life or Tea Cakes and she picked herself my perspective of her changed. I believe that Janie and Tea Cakes relationship was the realist thing Janie was ever going to accomplish. I think she finally realized once Tea Cake was dead that she lived a good life with him and that she could now be happy by herself. Tea Cake and Janie were not just a normal couple they had something special. Janie was head over heels for Tea Cake and vise-versa. There was a certain quote that really stuck out to me and made me realize just how much Janie loved Tea cake. "it was the meanest moment of eternity, A minute before she was just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake's head in her lap". I believe this is the moment Janie understood how much she honestly loved herself. She knew Tea Cake was going to die and she had the option of dying with him. Although some say at the end of the book Janie is dying which I personally will never know, but in my opinion I do not believe she was dying I believe she was coming to see what life is really about. I think Janie had a problem with being alone, she was married three separate times the first two were not good and did not last. While after Jody her second husband died she did stay single for sometime but not as long as everyone would have liked her too. Over all I believe this was a really good book, I learned a lot about people back in this time period.

THE AWAKENING

During the book "The Awakening" there was many times that I was all over the place with confusion. First off I for one believe if she did not want children she did not have to have them. It seemed to me a lot of the other woman that she was around did not have children either. I will say others did have children, but not all. Another thing that really confused me is that she did not want to be with her husband anymore and she wanted to be with Robert, yet she was all over Arobin kissing him and what not.

Starting off with the children situation, she did not want to have children and she made that pretty obvious in the book. Although she never spent time with them or cared for them as a mother should she did not want to be a mother because well I think it was to much responsibility for herself and she wanted to be more independent and having children just does not make you independent because there is a young being who is looking up to you for guidance and support. At the end of the book before she goes and kills herself she makes a statement that really makes me see the person she really is "she thought of leonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could have possess her, body and soul".(pg 109) To me when she says this line she is saying I do not want to be tied down and having a husband and children are not what I want there is no other way to live in this society unless I just kill myself and make it look like a tragic accident. I guess I did not live back in this day so I do not know the real struggles but even in today's society people want to have sex and then when they get pregnant freak out because that is not what they wanted in life. I think you should know the consequences of every situation before doing the things you want to do.

Now for how Edna is married but does not want to be married and wants to be with Robert, but Robert went to Mexico and ends up kind of flirting with Arobin. This is just a huge mess, but I think the reason that Edna was all close to Arobin was because Robert was not there and she wanted some sort of affection. I believe the only way she could receive this affection was through Arobin, because the second Robert gets back in the picture Arobin is out of the picture while her husband is still her husband he just does not really matter. There is one huge question that I ponder in the back of the book there is a paragraph titled "flirtation and increasing fastness of manner" in this paragraph there is a little part that caught my attention "no man cares to marry a free lance. Let her catch her fish, land him safely, and then, as a young married woman, let her go in and win as a married flirt. She will gain a fashionable position and a detestable reputation" (pg 124). If anyone has the real meaning of this quote please let me know because I am still a little confused by it.

Over all I thought this book was good, I did not like that she committed suicide in the end. Nor did I like how we do not find out what the husbands and kids thought or who found her and how, I always wish books would elaborate a little more on the extreme details, but I guess most authors want you to make up your own ending to the story.

The House of Mirth

I believe that after finally finishing the book "The House of Mirth" it ended up being a great book. There was one thing that really struck me throughout the book and that was the fact that Lily Bart would not tell her so called "Friends" the truth of what happened with Mr. Dorset. I do not know why but this really upset me, may be for the fact that she might have still inherited her aunts money and may be even married Seldon (not sure if that would have been possible at all but there is a may be). Lily and Gerty have a very important conversation "you should tell your friends the whole truth." "the whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "what is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's story than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her." (Wharton 176). Once I read this passage I started to understand why Lily was not telling her so called friends the truth it was because she was not rich and she did not have things to basically make her friends want to stay her friends. They would rather have a good social engagement then have real friends that actually cared about them. The other line that Lily Bart states really makes me understand the kind of way she thinks, "the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worst it looks." (Wharton 177). When Lily says this I really understand they way she is thinking. Which I think I finally understand her because I think the same way. Once something bad happens and someone tries to make everyone believe they did nothing wrong it makes them look more guilty. In a way I give serious props to Miss Bart for not sticking up for herself, but also for not trying to get revenge either.

I was really fascinated at how the book ended. As soon as Lily went to the drug store to get the prescription filled I had a very big hunch that she was going to end up over dosing on the medicine I did not know however if she would end up passing away or going into the hospital and having more mean things spread about her. One thing that really struck me as odd was that she went to Sheldon's and kept saying I am leaving the old Lily here and once I found out she died at the end I kind of thought that that was her plan. Then when you actually get to the part of her death right before it she believes she is going to be waking up in the morning. I guess I am just confused on whether or not she did it on purpose or if she really did not think taking a little more would do any harm. I was very upset to find out that Sheldon was finally going to go there to marry her, and when he got there he was legit upset to find out that she had passed. I do not think that he really understood how much he loved her until he went through her things and really got to thinking about her. Another thing that really really bothered me was when he was going through her things and he found the envelope to Mr, Dorset with the check in it for the money she "owed" him and Sheldon was in a sort of way talking crap about Lily saying the rumors were true and such, Then once he found the check book with the inheritance he kind of put everything together.

Over all I was really pleased with this book, I did not like I would like it as much as I did. I wish Lily would have ended up getting married and becoming of a higher social class than Mrs. Dorset but the book still was very pleasant.

The Color Purple

In the book The Color Purple there was many different questions I ended the book with. I thought Alice Walker did a very good job making this book, I believe everything in this book was very symbolic and some what truthful to the past situations, One main question I had after the book was complete was why did Celie not freak out more when she found out her "pa" really was not her pa. The chapter ends with Nettie writing to Celie stating "pa is not our pa"! (pg176) Right after that Celie only says "my daddy lynch. My mama crazy" (pg177). I was very stunned that Celie did not freak out more than she did, All she wanted was to see him again which brings up another question why would she want to do that? I mean after you find out that he is not your legit father would probably be a good thing, but he was still her step dad which really just bothers me that she wants to see him again, I guess she most likely wants some answers which she does receive,

The next question I am still pondering is why didn't Celie fight for Shug when Shug told Celie she found someone else. I believe the way Celie acted was childish by just "ignoring" Shug while she was trying to talk to her. But when Celie is telling Nettie the story she starts off by saying "My heart broke. Shug love somebody else" (pg247). I think Celie should have showed more emotion to Shug when Shug was telling her about the other person and may be then Shug would have realized how much Celie really needed her. I am happy that Shug did this to Celie though, because now Celie has had time to find her true self. She ended up having her own company she found some good in her husband and I truly believe she found out who she herself was.

Over all I thought this book was very good, it showed a lot of different meaning. In my life I never had to deal with any of these emotions or struggles and it is crazy to know that these things really could happen.

Kindred

Florian Bast is the author of a scholarly article titled "no.":" The Narrative Theorizing of Embodied Agency in Octavia Butler's Kindred." (ebsco). In the article she analysis other peoples perspectives on the book Kindred along with her own views. She also interprets Kindred in terms of its treatment of agency. "a persons ability to reach a decision about themselves and implement them." (pg151) She talks about two main points in Kindred, the body of the story and time travel.

Bast goes on to explain that Kindred centers on a young African American woman's attempts to free herself from slavery as she fiercely struggles for agency, for control of her own life. Such a reading holds significant interpretive potential for Kindred as it can connect notions of corporeality, power, subjectivity, and resistance and is particularly productive in relation to the multiple jeopardy which Dana faces as a black women. A huge part in the book was the very first line Butler used. "I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm." (1) This shows that Kindred engages with African American literary traditions of using bodily mutilation to symbolize the destructive influence of a violent past on the present, this is another reason that Bast believes Kindred fits in with agency.  Bast believes that Kindred is considered an agency reading because an agency reading is capable of encompassing issues at the heart of science fiction which Kindred falls under that category. "I consider Kindred a contribution to the complex and politically charged theoretical discussion of agency in the last decades". (pg155)

Another topic Bast discuses is Butlers use of time travel, the central infringement of Dana's agency is time travel itself, as the jumps are reason for her life in slavery. When the novel first begins Dana makes a statement "there was nothing I could do, I had no control at all over anything" (113). Dana believes that she has no choice but to stay in the slavery days with Rufus, come to find out later in the novel she herself has to feel as though she is in danger to get back home. When Dana time travels back into 1815 the definition of Dana's body is reduced to property possessed by a white land-owning male. Throughout Kindred I realized that every time Dana would come home she suffered from some form of physical trauma literally during ever single stay in the past. First with Rufus's mother when she saved him from drowning. Second time was when she almost got raped and assaulted by a patrol officer. Bast explains that people have been neglecting the fact that the novel's portrayal of these increasingly extreme abuses as losses of agency over Dana's own body. "Not only is she obviously unable to prevent her body's abuse, but it crucially robs her of control over her movements, explicating the interconnectedness of agency, subjectivity, and the body" (pg158). One moment in the novel I found that shows her loss of agency is when Dana got caught reading and is whipped "I kept trying to crawl away from the blows, but I didn't have the strength or the co-ordination to get far.. I vomited. And vomited again because I couldn't move my face away" (107). Not only are they repeated demonstrations of Dana's complete loss of the right to physical integrity and her ability to control her own body movements, but they also end up influencing her decision making.

Over all the article ends by saying Kindred constitutes a particularly productive object of an agency reading, the text is centrally concerned with narrating the struggle of a young black woman to escape the past both literally and figuratively and to gain a higher degree of agency in the process.

As I went on reading the article by Bast I came to the conclusion that I do believe Kindred is an agency reading. There is so much to the novel that you cannot understand everything just by reading it once. I believe once Dana understood that her life was literally in the hands of someone else, she knew that she had to make decisions to help herself and the slaves and that is why I believe Bast is right for saying her novel is an agency.

The other article I read was just called Kindred and it was off of spark notes, this one was very hard to grasp because it only really gives a summary of the book itself it does not really contradict anything in the novel nor does it give anything for you to agree or disagree with. So for this one I am not going to write much considering there is nothing to write.

Between the scholarly article and spark notes, I would have to say the scholarly article was way more interesting and had way more useful information than spark notes did, There was many different things in the Scholarly article that  I found fascinating and that would have to be the whole agency deal. I never knew that really existed nor did I know what it meant and now that I do know it makes me look at the other books I have read differently. This article definitely changed my own interpretation of the book I did not look into that much detail of how she lost her arm and the symbolism of her loosing her arm. I did not take into consideration how her and Kevin must have been after she came home and the struggle they must have had to deal with becoming themselves again, I also did not even think once about how hard it was for Dana to kill Rufus knowing that this was going to be her last time to see him. What I still ponder is why Dana made the breaking point of her killing Rufus when he decided he was going to rape her. I know she came up with it before she left the last time, I just do not understand why it would have been that but not him beating her or doing the things he did to her before that.

The Handmaid's Tale

For this blog, I would like to discuss how in the book The Handmaid's Tale Offred was treated and how in days as of today that is wrong. I could not believe the type of things that happened to all of the women in this book even the Commanders wives. Although a lot of parts in the book struck me as odd one in particular part that really caught my attention was when Offred is in the study room with her commander and she says "my presence here is illegal. Its forbidden for us to be alone with the Commanders." I guess I am not to sure why they cannot be with the Commanders alone, I understand that the Handmaid's are basically for reproduction only but don't you think if the two knew each other a little more better it would be easier to have sex with them? I think that in a certain mind set if you do not enjoy the sex (which in this case who would) but then it may become harder to become pregnant in a way I feel as if your body knows when you are happy and when you are not along with your hormones. It is also to think that the women in general not just the Handmaid's could not read, write or in some cases talk. I believe this is just outrageous. I do not see how taking away a women's ability to read and write with help in anyway making her become pregnant. Making a women helpless is going to make them want to rebel and I cannot believe that more women in this story did not rebel. As for Moria I believe that she made the right decision although I am sure that is not something she wanted to do in life was work in a so called "whorehouse" but at least she can do what she wants. For instance when they are sitting in the ladies room at the "club" and Moria asks Offred "you want a cig?" (pg, 243) Handmaid's are not allowed to smoke because it makes getting pregnant harder, even though I find this not to be true it is one of the rules for the women. Part of me really loved this book and the way it made me open my eyes and realize how good I have it and how life is not all that bad. The other part of me really disliked this book because I do not find out what really happens at the end. If I could make an ending it would be a good one, where all the women that were made to do something they did not want to do had the chance to escape and go somewhere where they loved and wanted to be. Rather then dread everyday of their lives.

Hunger Games

For the first blog I would like to talk about the Hunger Games and what I thought about the book, what I thought was interesting and the book in general. First off I actually really enjoyed the book. I did not want to watch the movie nor read the book when it first came out because I thought it was going to be some stupid crap that everyone was so obsessed about and I did not want to be one of those people. Well know that I read it I want to read the next two right now! I am not sure if I want to watch the movie or not yet until they all come out so then I do not have to be waiting in anticipation to see them all right away.

Even though I had to read this book for class I still really enjoyed it, I thought a lot about this book was interesting for instance how "masculine" Katniss was which to some extent irritated me a little bit because I feel as though the author was making a big deal about her and her appearance when in all reality there are a lot of women in the world like Katniss she is not the first to know how to hunt or that is tough. I did like how Peeta was more the "feminine" kind and how he is the "bread maker" even though it seemed to do him some good knowing the different types of bread. Another thing I thought was interesting is how Rue and Katniss got along and teamed up with one another, I mean sure Rue probably reminded Katniss some what of Prim, but I also think Katniss was happy to have someone on her side and also to have someone to be with and to talk too. Katniss did not have a single friend not even Peeta because she did not consider him a friend for most of the book. 

Now for the book in general. Over all I really liked this book and I cannot wait to read the next two. Though I was very disappointed that I do not know what is going to happen with Peeta and Katniss I am kind of hoping she ends up in a relationship with Gale. As I am saying this I feel so bad for either one of them who ever she ends up being with is going to be a good choice but both Peeta and Gale seem like really nice guys and I do not even know if I could choose who to be with, Katniss has a lot of thinking to do regarding that situation. Most of me did not like Katniss at all, I did not like how she would put on a show for the game makers. She clammed she did not care what they thought of her, but as soon as she was in their presence she put on many different acts. I guess if being put in her situation though you never know what your going to do till you do it.