Meaghan and Women's Literature

[meaghanandwomenslit]

A writing experiment

“Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world” Oscar Wilde.

The experiment I am referring to with this project does not have anything to do with what I am writing about. This experiment has to do with my writing process. I’m not sure at all what it is doing or how it will do what I need it to but I thought tomorrow’s class might be a good opportunity to test it out. Solnit, Gay, and myself are my personal stylists for this project but I have not used any of these styles yet from what I can tell at least in the drafting process. Maybe it is in there somewhere. 

This project is centered on the character of Eowyn from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. She is beautiful, strong, and has suffered much in her young life. Her greatest desire is to fight in battle against evil alongside the men. She feels helpless because she cannot do this but for other reasons too. The man who has been like a father to her has been brainwashed and has his mind controlled by an evil pawn of the dark lord. She knows this is happening and who is doing it but has no way of fighting him. Her brother, Eomer, a warrior himself, doesn’t even have the power to do anything because he has been banished from the land. 

What I want to do in this project is to explore solitary journeys, especially of women who are ready to do what it takes to help bring light to the darkness in the world. It will be centered on Eowyn most obviously because she is a woman, but also because she does not become a warrior at the expense of her femininity. This kind of situation fascinates me primarily because of the fact that she does so by doing things that many people assume only men do. Even in the world of Tolkien, which is fantasy but also very traditional to many people, women are capable of being women, and at the same time are capable of ruling their people, wielding a sword, fighting a battle, and even conquering evil. Whenever I hear that Tolkien’s work lacks strong female characters I want to just laugh. Not only is this not the case for Eowyn specifically, but the other women in his novel are also beautiful characters of the feminine genius which Tolkien recognized.

I am still not sure how I am getting to this goal, because my writing is so experimental right now. It was not my intention to do my project this way, but unfortunately I have a horrible case of writer’s block that I am doing my best to overcome by whatever seems to work. So, trusting the process, no matter the outcome has become my motto for now. Here’s to hoping!

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Keyword: Solitude

Solitude was not a word I was expecting to research for this assignment, but as I was finding all sorts of information on it I realized just how much it fits in with many of the topics we have been discussing over the semester. One of the most frequent synonyms is “alone”. I’m not sure at what point I saw this, but I think it was at some point while putting together all the information into the diagram. So I specifically looked for all the cases where “alone” was popping up, then put them in bold/italics/underlining. The result was pretty cool because as you pull away from the picture, you can see how many times this is on the picture compared to the word solitude. In Solnit’s work, for example, in one of the quotations I was most struck by she uses the term alone rather than solitude. The reason I found this interesting was the fact that the title of the first work we read by her is “The Solitary Stroller and the City”. I’m not sure why I find this interesting except maybe that the theme of solitude is apparent in the works we read without her even using the word itself. Solitude being used as a theme, rather than using the word, is I think also present in other works by authors we read such as Allison Bechdel, Roxane Gay, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These women came to mind for me immediately after Solnit since they each either represent the theme of solitude or have experienced being alone at some point in their lives and it strongly comes through in their works.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Eowyn has to be one of the best female characters in the literary world! Well, one of them anyways :) Take a look at this video showing her greatest moment in battle against the Witch King of Angmar, one of the most evil characters in the story!

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Okay yes, I’m obsessed, but they really are two of the greatest dancers in the twentieth century, and I just love this quote! One of my favorites! Really speaks for the female side of dancing.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Citizen

Hmm…

If Rankine shadowed me for a day… She would probably realize how much I am NOT a morning person just by counting how many times I hit snooze on the alarm before I get up. Or even how many times it goes off and I don’t hear it! 

Hmm... still thinking...

This is actually a difficult question to answer! I mean it really depends on the day. Each one can be so vastly different. She could see me in a dreamy, happy mood on a rainy day (rainy days are quite inspiring to me), and then irritable and cross on a sunny day because I don’t like the heat or the humidity. I’m sure she would write about my talent for pulling all-nighters when stressed out and behind on homework. Not that these really help in the long run because of how much they mess up your sleep. But in the short term they can be so relieving for the built-up anxiety of the day that they are just too tempting! Then she would write about the day after an all-nighter, along with the frayed nerves accompanying me throughout it! This really doesn’t happen though as much as it used to. Which just means that I’ve had to find other ways of combating the stress which is healthier anyways. That’s really all I can think of. I know she would notice a lot more, I’m sure even more than I would. Like how many hours a day I listen to music on my headphones, or how immersed in a book I can be, and she may even be able to tell me for a fact how many hours I can spend on something when I’m on a role and lost to the world. But I guess that would only happen if she did actually shadow me for a day in reality.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Ginger Rogers is one of my favorite actresses! I like this quotation mostly because she points out how nice it is to be a strong woman who is seen, but that it is also okay that some women who are equally strong don’t want to be seen.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Feminism

I’ve heard the word Feminism in so many contexts it has been hard to keep track. Some speak about it in terms of true feminism versus false feminism. Others use it to talk about historical events, using it when explaining what began the movement in the first place. There is also the context of different waves of feminism. I consider these to be contexts that people use in discussing the topic, but I have also heard it spoken about with many different tones. There are times it sounds like people are sick of the word itself, probably due to hearing about it so often with different meanings that they are frustrated with it. I think some of this has to do with all the confusion the word now causes. It does not have one definition. There is so much history involved in the topic on so many levels that it can be difficult for people to filter through it all to understand what it meant, means, and needs to mean in the future. Other times are when people use it fanatically and their tones and attitudes communicate disgust for anyone who dares to argue with them. This is probably the one I cringe at the most personally. Not that they are wrong in their argument but it is challenging for anyone to hear what someone has to say when that person treats you without respect if you disagree with them. It makes conversation impossible! And that I think is the key; keeping the topic conversational. If you can’t have a conversation about something then there is no possibility for anyone to experience growth. This semester, I am happy to say I have encountered some very new and positive tones both in this class and in my Catholic studies class, “Woman and Man.” In both classes it has been so refreshing to have the ability of conversing with people who are respectful and open-minded. I have certainly learned more about the topic in these classes than any other time of my life which has been really awesome.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Roxane Gay event

Roxane Gay is an incredibly talented writer and speaker. Her sense of humor is so hilarious and unique, but I found it interesting that there were moments during her reading when the audience would start laughing about something she said after the fact, or they would laugh harder as it slowly sunk in. This is refreshing in a speaker, especially one who is speaking against discrimination, which tends to be a heated topic for many. The fact that she was able to keep it serious and lighthearted at the same time impressed me.

Her essay, “Bad Feminist”, was perhaps the one she read that struck me the most. Her provocative thinking on redefining feminism really seemed to relate to all people instead of just women. There were men and women at the event, and both men and women asked questions. She was respectful to all and focused many times on how much we as human beings need to simply “be better about being considerate”, and even mentioned that men can sometimes have just as much difficulty in our world as women do. Although, she did not mean this in a way that ignores those people who are specifically discriminated against whether due to gender, sexuality, race, or even religion.

The way she talked about all of these issues was calm, respectful, and with a large dose of humor in the mix! But she was able to maintain sincerity throughout the entire event. I think part of this was because she is really trying to be the most authentic version of herself and does so while expecting others to do the same even if that may be quite different from her. Disagreements are not to be avoided in our world and cannot be anyways. So she focuses on how to be kind to one another as human beings, with respect even in disagreement, but she also strongly suggests ways of reaching out to people where they are at in order to help them see where they may need to change how they treat others.

Through reading her essays, she communicated the struggles she had growing up and some she continues to have to this day. She spoke about them in ways that relate to everyone, because honestly all people have struggles, some more than others. Her writing was a way for her to work through her pain and suffering and still is. She spoke about bullying, popularity, friendship, acceptance, tolerance, and many other things that I’m sure we all have experienced at some point in our lives in different degrees. She talked about books being the way she coped through all of these difficulties even before she began writing. Through her life, they have never been censored and she pointed out how important this was for her. This is a good message for all of us to hear. I’m not necessarily advocating for every single book ever written since I’m sure I am not the only one who would say that there have been and are going to be books that have issues. But the message I think she was trying to communicate is simply to be more open-minded to what books are capable of. We’ve talked quite a bit in class about marginalization and my favorite example would probably be the novel. I cannot imagine my life without novels! They have been a saving factor for me in my own life many times. And yet, there was a time that these were considered to be trash or not worth people’s time.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

An Unexpected Pass

Okay, “Mom’s Night Out”. Let me just begin by saying how hilarious and awesome this movie is! And I’m a bit surprised, but it does in fact pass the Bechdel test. Although I have to admit I don’t see this test as necessarily being the most authentic way to look at a movie. Many of the other students in this class seem to be picking up on this same idea so I won’t go too far into it. Basically, the test seems to me to be one way to find instances where women are represented, which I think is a good thing, but it doesn’t dive into the deeper questions about what it means to be a woman, how many different ways that it can be done successfully, or even just the fact that being a woman is just learning how to be human to a certain extent.

Anyways, back to the movie. It was one of the first ones to cross my mind when thinking about the Bechdel test. Most people might immediately assume that it couldn’t possibly pass the test, since it’s about married women who are all moms and of course men are involved quite a bit. But the focus of the movie is uniquely different. The main story is about three wives/mothers who are desperate for a “girl’s night out”. The fathers get to stay home with the kids. Quite the role reversal considering the culture we live in. The night turns from disastrous to worse in the funniest ways you can imagine! As far as the test goes, there are more than two named women who have conversations about more than one thing not including men. Actually, there is a scene with a whole group of women, and they are talking about stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with men! Of course men are a part of things but I think that is another fabulous aspect of the movie. Rather than being excluded from the solution, they are included as well as supportive! Which is also something you might not expect in our culture.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie depicts the issue at heart as the importance of learning to embrace and to be who you truly are as a person. The conversation explores the fact that being enough for other people is not how to be enough for you. It focuses on how the main woman at the center of the film is burnt out and exhausted because she is trying to be the “perfect” everything for everyone except for herself. The way this conversation unfolds might surprise some people, but I won’t say anything else purely because it is a blast to watch this movie unfold without knowing what is going to happen. Here is a link for the trailer if anyone is interested! J https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leb6Vnhbp1A 

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

I decided to add to the existing page about Immaculée Ilibagiza. She is from Rwanda, Africa and survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide. All of her family members were killed during this massacre except for her brother who was not in the country at the time and didn’t know it was happening until after it was over. The Wikipedia page had some basic information about her, and it had a section about her first book Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (2006), but it didn’t include information about her other books. I added a section on her book Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Holocaust which is the sequel to the first.

This book is important for people to know about because it is her story immediately following the genocide. It describes her journey of searching for safety as well as her attempts to work through the devastation she survived. Through this journey it was necessary to find protection since the genocide had been one event of many during a time of war, and there were higher chances that women and young girls would be raped. She ended up helping to encourage many of her people along the way to finding safety, especially children who had been orphaned.

In the section I added, I mentioned also that one of the questions she finds herself asking has to do with why she lived through the experience at all. This is one of the most important questions she looks to answer in her life afterwards, and part of the conclusion she comes to is that she survived in order to tell of the strength she drew from her deep faith in God and the prayer she came to depend on during the horrific 91 days of the genocide.

[meaghanandwomenslit]

Sontag’s “In Plato’s Cave”

At one point in Sontag’s article, she uses the movie, Rear Window, as an example to describe the involvement a photographer does and doesn’t have when taking photographs of events. She claims the main character “played by James Stewart has an intensified relation to one event … precisely because he has a broken leg and is confined to a wheelchair” (12). In the story, J.B. Jeffries does indeed watch from his window as he waits out seven weeks of wearing a cast. At first it is out of pure boredom that he does so and even the insurance company’s nurse who takes care of him notices that nothing he sees stimulates any interest for him. This even includes an attractive ballerina practicing in front of her window every day. He sees the everyday lives of his neighbors and can describe who they are in a nutshell from what he has seen but as the story unfolds we find out he may not know them as much as he thinks.

When Sontag says of him “being temporarily immobilized prevents him from acting on what he sees, and makes it even more important to take pictures” (12), she must be referring to about a third of the way through the movie when he actually sees something intriguing happening that is unlike the day in and day out activities of his neighbors. As he watches one of the married couples, he sees suspect behavior in the husband, and Jeffries, after observing through binoculars and a camera, comes to the conclusion that the husband, Thorwald, has murdered his wife. This keeps him and his girlfriend, Lisa, actively attempting to catch Thorwald.

They do become active in recording what they can about the man to unlock the mystery, but they do so with the intention of catching him. Sontag seems to imply that these characters desire the criminal activity to continue when she says “to take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged (at least for as long as it takes to get a “good” picture)”. This may be the case in other situations or examples but I didn’t think it fit with this movie. The intention of recording the unfolding events is to catch a criminal; it is definitely not to encourage murder so they can get a good picture. Another example would be when a different neighbor is about to commit suicide. Action is immediately taken to prevent it at the same time they are trying to catch the murderer. I do think photography is something people use in the way Sontag describes, but was curious about how she tied this specific issue of it to this particular movie.

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Meaghan’s avatar: Galadriel

Galadriel is one of my favorite characters in “The Lord of the Rings”. Her role is one of strength, wisdom, courage and caring. There are moments in the story when all hope seems lost and it is during some of the most crucial ones that she appears with impeccable timing. It could be something she said to the them, or a gift she gave them earlier in their journey but either way I think she is one of the most important people in the book.