Writing about Fun Home

Fun Home is a autobiographical graphic novel, and it is also a coming-of-age story. Accordingly, there are a lot of themes in this work that echo other books we have read this semester: themes of self-expression, developing an identity, personal beliefs vs. societal expectations, sexual exploration, desire, guilt, control, and insecurity. You can write about Bechdel's talk on any of these themes and what she adds to the conversation.

One of the things that makes this work very different is the pictures. Bechdel is an artist, and she is doing a lot of interesting things with the images she presents, in writing as well as pictures. Notice some of her fine details, how she plays with light and shadow, what is in focus and what is sidelined in various pages, what is repeated, changed, etc.

Like many other writers, Bechdel seems to suggest that writing is an outlet for survival as well as expression. Like Ensler, she also uses a dark humor as a coping mechanism. Explore this in her tone and in her contradictions.

Like Nye, Bechdel looks to her father in order to understand herself. Throughout Fun Home, she reads her father's sexual identity as a mirror of her own (lots of images of mirrors throughout) just as Nye read her father's cultural identity as a mirror of her own. What might this suggest about the way that children use family as a springboard for their own self-expression and identity? How do these authors both embrace and reject their families? How so they learn from their experiences? Specifically, how does Bechdel write a different ending for herself than her father's and why is that so important?

Reading Buterflies

photo © 2009 Hafiz Issadeen | more info (via: Wylio)



Remember to keep your character charts/event timelines.

Here are some reading and writing questions that you can blog about: (warning: #7 contains a spolier)


1) Why does Alvarez feel compelled to tell this story, to bring this story to American
readers? What does she want us to gain from knowing this history, from knowing
these women? Is this an American story? How is this also Alvarez’s story? Where
is her voice here?

2) By the end of the novel, how have the characters of Minerva, Mate, and Patria
changed? Have they changed the revolution or has the revolution changed them?
Is there a happy ending to this story at all?

3) In the epilogue, Dede’s perspective is presented from a first person point of view,
unlike her previous chapters which were in third person. Why? Has she finally
found her “I”? What has she learned about herself by this time? Who is she and
how has her view of herself changed? Why does Alvarez dedicate the novel to
Dede?

4) Why does Trujillo kill the sisters even though they’re no longer directly involved
in the revolution? Were the women victims, martyrs, heroes, or something else?
What about the men? Why doesn’t he kill them? What does he do instead?

5) By the end of the novel, do you get used to Alvarez’s style? Why did she choose
this style? Does it work? Is she able to get you to finish reading the book even
though you know the ending? What does she focus on instead and why?

6) Alvarez says that she wants to take us beyond the legend in creating her
characters? Does she do this? How? Why?

7) What do you think she is trying to accomplish with this book? What is she saying
about truth, justice, storytelling, the search for self, the roles of women, and other
themes touched on in the book?

Bookstore Alert!!

The bookstore sends any unbought books back about halfway through the semester. They sent an email saying that it was almost that time. So, if you haven't bought the rest of the books needed for this class, and were planning to buy them at the bookstore, wither buy them now or go there and ask them to hold them for you. If not, they will send them all back and you will need to find them elsewhere.

photo © 2006 Ian Wilson | more info (via: Wylio)

Blogging Ideas for I Am An Emotional Creature

1. Explore the contradictions in the text. What do they reveal about the lives of girls today?

2. Explore the connections between 2 pieces in the text (for example: Dear Rihanna and Bad Boys or Asking the Question and It's Not A Baby... or Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery and 35 Minutes). How do they speak to one another?

3. What progression do you see taking place over the 3 sections? I find the last section the most powerful, and it makes me reflect back on the first two a bit differently. Think about how the 3 make sense to you or work together to build some larger project.

4. Look up some of the women or groups mentioned in Section 3 and explore the context a bit more. How does that enrich your understanding of the text itself?

5. Consider the epilogue. What else would you add to this poem? What else do girls need to know or be reminded of?

6. The word "feminism" isn't used in the book, but how might Ensler be defining or repackaging feminism from a 21st century girls' perspective.

7. Ensler draws distinctions between "girls" and "boys" as well as between "girls" and "adults/women." Why? What does that show?

8. As I read this book, I think a lot about "nature vs nurture." In some places it seems like Ensler essentializes, even stereotypes, girls (for example, she implies that all girls are emotional). Other places, I see her questioning/challenging those assumptions or saying something else entirely. What can you add to this conversation? Why are these questions important to think about in regard to girls in general and Ensler's project specifically?

9. What does the game "Would You Rather?" show abut girls, especially the one girl who wants to play it?

10. Thinking about one of the facts along with a few other pieces, what do girls need in High School besides "Sex Ed" in order to not get pregnant, etc.?

Reading and Writing Questions for The Vagina Monologues

Here are some analysis questions that we may explore in class discussion or in an in-class writing. You may also use them in blogging:

1)The genre of this piece of literature is drama, meaning that Ensler wrote these monologues to be performed. Why do you think she wants vaginas to be publicly performed? Why does she want vaginas to be physically embodied? What effect does this have on the way we see and think of vaginas?

2)For Ensler, language is important? Why? What does it matter what we call body parts? What is the importance of language in defining sexuality, bodies, etc.? Why do you think she asks those questions about what vaginas would wear, etc? What is she trying to do with that?

3)Ensler seems to have two purposes in this text: to celebrate vaginas and to raise awareness of violence against women? Does she achieve both of these goals equally? Do they contradict each other at all? What is the effect of reading all the monologues as one large piece?

4)Emotion plays a huge role in what Ensler is trying to accomplish. Why is this? How does she use emotions like humor as a strategy? How does she move us from laughter to embarrassment to sadness to other emotional reactions and why do you think she is doing this?

5)Audience reaction is crucial to Ensler’s overall project. Why? Why won’t she allow us to simply read without having a reaction, whether positive or negative? Why do you think she wants to push us out of our comfort zones? Which monologues resonate most strongly (positively or negatively) with you and why?

How much do you know of Haiti's history?

The title of the second story in Danticat's collection, "1937" signifies how much the writing is steeped in Haitian history. You need to know a little about this history to truly understand the images and references in the collection, especially this story, especially the title of the story, and especially the third story, "A Wall of Fire Rising." When reading these two pieces (or before you read or re-read them), look up some information on Haiti and its history. Learn a little about the significance of the folowing things:

1937
voodoo religion
Massacre River
Boukman
Toussaint Louverture
Duvalier (Papa Doc)
tonton macoutes (from 1st story)

Language and Story in Krik? Krak!

Edwidge Danticat, the author of Krik? Krak!, is a Haitian-American writer. Unlike Naomi Shihab Nye who was born in the United States, Danticat was born in Haiti and came here at the age of 12. Like Nye, however, Danticat writes to pass on stories, to reaffirm history, identity, cultural memory. The title of her book comes from a tradition of storytelling passed down from elders in the Haitian community: "We tell the stories so that the young ones will know what came before them. They ask Krik? we say Krak!" This tradition preserves the stories in a collective, communal, memory: "Our stories are kept in our hearts."

This theme of story, speech, writing, and communication are found throughout the book. In the first story, for example, there are two narrators, writing in separate journals (although ostensibly writing to each other as well.) The male narrator is wanted by the government as a traitor because he spoke his mind on the radio. That results in his current situation where all communication is hidden from public view. In fictionalizing these two diary writers, though, Danticat reinstates their intended correspondence as public language -- writing to resist silences placed on them by outside forces. (The author talks more about the importance of voicing these silenced voices in the epilogue, which we are reading for next week.) Language is seen in this first story as dangerous, but also powerful. Think about the relation of language to other forces of power in the story like government, violence, love, family, etc. What part does language play? What can it accomplish?

In the first story, also pay attention to the two speakers, their different writing styles, and the stories they tell (for themselves and for others). Also, consider why Danticat begins her collection with this specific story, putting her own voice somewhat in the background by foregrounding the two 1st-person narrators. Why give us a glimpse of their private and personal communication? At the same time, the individual narrators are also somewhat depersonalized as they are unnamed, anonymous. Why is this? What is the effect of that tactic? Is there a connection to the comment on page 3 that there are "lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves"? How does that statement relate to Danticat's purpose in writing?