Final

Women's literature is literature written by and about women and generally is used to show the hardships that many women have to go through and deal with in their lives.  The purpose of this type of literature is to try and make people more aware of the suffering some women have to endure and to try and lessen the amount of women that have to suffer.  All of the books we have read this semester have shown different struggles that women of different cultures had to overcome or learn to cope with.  I think the stories are supposed to empower women and show them that just because they may have to overcome obstacles does not mean that they cannot do what they desire.  In the novel "In the Time of the Butterflies" the three rebel sisters lived in a small community where women were not necessarily as equal as men.  The sisters found a way to accomplish their goals by becoming well-educated and persisting in their efforts to create a better society.  This is a good example of the purpose of women's literature because it is supposed to give hope to women who think they cannot do the things they dream of doing, simply because they are women.  In most of the books we read there are certain experiences that the women go through that define the rest of their lives.  In the book where the Japanese family have to go to the concentration camps, that whole experience changed the lives of the children completely.  When the children first entered they seemed like innocent, naive children, and after they had been there for a while they matured very quickly and became different people.  The children had to adapt to their situation in order to survive the ordeal.  The big sister had take care of her little brother which left her little time to be a normal girl.  In "The Shawl," both Stella and Rosa's lives were changed greatly.  After the death of Rosa's baby, she was never able to forgive her niece for stealing the shawl away from Magda.  This one event shaped both of their futures in some way.  Stella was also never able to get over her experience in the Holocaust and this is shown when she meets a friendly elderly man who said he was also from Warsaw, but he left in 1920.  Her response was, "My Warsaw is not your Warsaw," which basically means that he had no idea of what she had been through.  In "Push," Precious had to deal with pregnancy at an extremely early age.  Pregnancy is one of the most common hardships that most women have to go through in their lives.  In Precious' case, she had to unwillingly deal with it at the age of twelve.  In addition to being pregnant at the age of twelve, the reason was due to her father raping her since she was seven years old.  Rape is a huge issue amongst many women, and I think this book was meant to show how extreme the issue is.  Tons of women are raped throughout the world and this book brings awareness to that fact.  When Precious had her first child she wanted to give up but one of the doctors kept saying, "Come on Precious, push."  These were some words of encouragement that helped her later on in life as well.  The two books by Eve Ensler were centered around normal everyday problems that women have to deal with, and allow women to take pride in themselves and their bodies.  A lot of women are self-conscious of their looks, their sexuality, and just knowing who their identity is.  These two books address these issues and are supposed to show the reader how they are not the only ones experiencing these feelings, and women should take pride in their differences.  All of the books we have read this year in some way are meant to bring hope to struggling women across the world.

The Shawl Question #2

I believe the reason why the author decided to include such a small segment about the Holocaust was due to the fact that the book was not supposed to be a recount of Holocaust experiences.  This book was mainly about Rosa and her relationship with Stella and other people and how her experience in the Holocaust made her act the way she does.  When Stella steals the shawl for herself Rosa's baby is exposed and thrown against an electric fence by one of the guards.  After this event Rosa is forever scarred and blames her baby's death completely on Stella, even though she was only fourteen years old.  She resents Stella so much that she calls her "The angel of death," which is also the nickname for the notorious Nazi doctor who performed disturbing and inhumane experiments on Jews in the Holocaust.  This one event completely shaped their relationship for the rest of their lives.  The story is mainly about Rosa's life in Florida because it captures her life after the Holocaust and how it affected the outcome her future.  Stella sends her money and is very nice and patient with Rosa, but Rosa still holds an everlasting grudge against her because of the unintentional death of her baby.  Rosa is also slightly deranged thus unable to have normal relationships with people.  She feels alone in the world because she believes that no one could ever understand what she had gone through.  When she met an old man in the laundromat the man realized that they were both from Warsaw, Poland except he moved to the United States in 1920, well before the Holocaust began.  She responded by saying, "My Warsaw is not your Warsaw."  What she meant by this is that even though they are from the same place, the way they remember it is drastically different due to her experience in the Holocaust.  Her life in Florida is a way to show people the lives of the Holocaust survivors after the Holocaust, and how it will forever affect them in the way that they live.

When the Emperor Was Divine #9

Although this story is about a Japanese-American family who had to relocate to an internment camp it has a lot to do with the idea of the American dream.  The family in the book had lived in the United States for many years and even raised the children to speak only English because they wanted to become known as American citizens.  Most of the people of Japanese descent had well paying jobs and lived a very American lifestyle.  They admired the culture and all they had always wanted was to be recognized as members of the American lifestyle.  The American dream is to have a good job, live in a nice house, and be recognized as someone who is well respected and successful.  The family in the story makes a decent income and lives in a nice neighborhood in a regular American community.  The only part of the American dream they were missing was that they were not recognized as members of the country and they were looked upon as less than the white citizens.  When the relocation signs were first posted around town a man ran into the boy in the family and asked him, "Are you a jap or chink?" The fact that he asked him where he was from using crude language shows the lack of respect he had towards the boy's ethnicity and treated him as if he were less of a person.  I believe the author is trying to say that sometimes it takes more than money and a nice house to achieve the American dream, and that if people don't respect you than it is hard to feel like you've achieved the American dream.  When talking about the history of the United States people rarely mention the hardships that Japanese-American people had to go through.  People usually refrain from mentioning any events that have occurred in our society that are now frowned upon.  If anything this story could help people see what it was like for the Japanese and how it is morally wrong to generalize a whole race of people just because the nation is in panic mode. 

When the Emperor Was Divine #3

The animals in this story play a significant role in the lives of the family and have a lot of meaning behind their presence.  The white dog in the beginning let the reader know that the Japanese relocation was a very large part of the lives of the three main characters and showed how their possessions would not necessarily belong to them when they got back.  The woman killed white dog because she knew that the dog would live a very poor lifestyle for the remainder of his life, and wanted to put him out of his misery.  The dog and the pet bird that was set free represent the sacrifices the family had to make due to the law that was enacted.  The act of killing white dog also revealed the nature of the mother and how she was very stoic and in a state of some sort of lost hope.  A short while after she had already performed the deed her son was calling the dog's name and she did not respond.  The author said, "She was cutting apples."  The woman showed no sign of any emotion and just continued to prepare for the move.  The reoccurring theme of horses throughout the novel have a different meaning to the characters.  The horses mainly play a role in the boy's life and not so much in the lives of his mother and sister.  Since the boy was younger, when they lived in the horse stables, he had a distinct fascination in them and seemed as though he even had some sort of bond with them.  On the train the boy really wanted to see wild horses running around freely and untamed.  "He watched the horses as they galloped toward the mountains and he said very softly, 'They are going away.'"  His reaction to seeing the horses was one of awe and inspiration.  The boy almost wanted to be like the horses where he could be free and not have to be told where to go and where to live.  The horses also symbolize how the Japanese were treated like animals in the way that they were held in captivity like the horses in the stables, because they themselves had to live in horse stables.  The turtle in the book was another animal the boy could relate to.  They were both forced to live in some sort of a box and were dependent on somebody else in order to live.  The turtle was neglected by the boy and was forgotten to the point to where it died because it had not been fed enough.  The boy and the other Japanese people at the camp were also neglected by the Americans and treated below reasonable standards.  Everyone at the camp was just like the turtle in the box only they were remembered enough to be fed.

American Dream?

I do not believe that this is supposed to be a story about a girl achieving the American dream or anything close to that.  When people speak of the American dream they are referring to becoming successful and owning a house in a nice neighborhood.  Precious never really ends up successful at the end of the story she is just in a better position to become successful than she was at the beginning.  I see this as a story of both hope and despair, but not strictly one or the other.  This is definitely a story of hope because she starts out living with parents who abuse her and treat her like a slave.  She also starts out with very little education and no incentive to learn.  Throughout the book she learns to read and write, she learns that she plays a major role in the life of her children, and she builds relationships with people her own age and has a positive role model in her life now that Ms. Rain is her teacher.  When Precious speaks of her baby Abdul she says, "I'm gonna make sure your smart when you grow up." She says this because she feels that she is stupid and wants her children to become educated and to not be like herself.  By the end of the book she understands that she can amount to something as long as she stays on the right path.  This is also a story of despair due to the fact that at the end of the book nothing is really resolved.  Precious still lives at the halfway house, she still hasn't scored high enough on the test to get her G.E.D., and she has H.I.V. Throughout the whole book it describes how she was abused for her entire life, and ended up getting H.I.V.  The ending is not too hopeful because even though Abdul's life will be better than hers, she still has a hard life ahead of her and will most likely die within a few years due to the disease she contracted.  The ending is bittersweet because there is more hope than there was in the beginning, but there is still a lot of despair and doubt about Precious. 

Identity

The first time Precious gave birth she was far too young to be a mother.  She really didn't understand what it meant to have a child, and did not know anything about being a mother.  Precious did not even help raise her fist child because she was not ready to have her own kids when she was still a kid herself.  At this time period in her life she was completely unaware of who she was and did not really have her own identity.  Precious was basically another product of the environment around her.  When she was sixteen years old she had another baby only this time she was slightly older.  Even though she was only sixteen, her view of having a child had been altered.  She came to realize that she needed to raise her children better than she was raised by her parents.  Throughout the novel, Precious grows to realize all of the things that are wrong in her life and wants to start changing the outcome of her future.  She begins to want to learn how to read and write in order to be able to read to her baby and allow her child to become more intelligent than her in the future.  Her main goal is to raise her child in a better environment than the one she grew up in.  Becoming a parent basically made her motivated to learn and caused her to mature a lot because now she realizes that her children need a better mother than the one that raised her.  Even though her mother beat her and treated her like a slave for her whole life, and her father raped her since she was seven, Precious almost seemed to have forgiven them.  After Precious began doing well for herself at the new alternative school she enrolled in, she said, "I don't hate mama. I don't hate Karl neither." She specifically says that she does not hate her parents even after all of the years of abuse.  I believe the reason Precious does not hate her parents is due to the fact that she has now matured more than they ever will.  She realizes that they are a product of the way they grew up, and even though what they did was wrong, that is how they were raised as well.  By experiencing severe abuse as a child she now knows exactly what not to do when raising her children.  Precious can use her knowledge of abuse to allow her children to have better lives than anyone else in her family.

Push

In the beginning of "Push" it starts out with telling the story of how Precious had her first child at the age of twelve.  The fact that she was twelve was the first shocker in the book.  It turned out that the father of her child was her own father, and he had been raping her for years.  Her mother would also beat her all the time and treat her like a slave around the house.  Due to the harsh nature of her upbringing she wound up very uneducated and was far behind her class at the age of sixteen.  All of these events are supposed to show the reader the harsh reality of the lives of some people who are born into poverty and deprived.  Precious is supposed to represent everyone who were abused and left uneducated and eventually left to become almost nothing in the eyes of the world.  Because of the way Precious was raised, and because of the cruelty she was shown as a child she herself became cruel and mean to the people around her.  She said that in school people would yell at her and call her names because she was so tall and so big.  She grew a distaste for most of the people in her life simply because no one had ever shown her compassion.  She also had a very low self-esteem and this is shown through her when she talks about how she knows she's nothing, and she agreed when people called her stupid.  Frankly she never thought she would amount to anything because nobody ever told her she could be anything if she tried.  Precious basically grew up with all of the wrong morals and wasn't even sure of what was right or wrong.  Not only did she not know how to treat other people, she also did not know how it felt to be treated with sympathy.  During her first pregnancy, a doctor was acting very nicely towards her and she said, "No man was never nice like that to me before."  It is crazy to think that the first time anyone was nice to her before was by a man who was only doing his job.  This captures how deprived she was as a child and how warped her view on the world must have been.  In the very beginning she seems like she is a tough bully of some sort, but in reality she only acted that way due to her appearance.  She was actually a sensitive girl who did not know what to make of the things that had happened to her in her life.  Precious is one of the many abused victims of society who are lost because of their mistreatment, but she is also one who understands she is lost and wants to find her way.

Fun Home

Alison Bechdel focuses on the theme of sexual confusion and coping with it within a family and society.  The father in the family is always shown as a very feminine man who had a strong interest in gardening and decorating the house.  He was also very concerned with his own appearance regarding his clothes and his appearance at public functions.  He would mask his true identity by making it seem as though he were just a regular father with a wife and family.  In reality, the father was not entirely sure of his sexuality but found himself attracted to men his whole life.  There had been signs of his double life ever since Alison was a child, but she was unaware of it until she was around 20 years old.  He was especially interested in teenage men and would hire them as baby sitters or landscapers in order to try and hit on them.  He would even go on trips to visit with young men while his wife knew what he was up to the whole time.  Alison's father was very distant from her during her childhood, possibly due to him being unhappy with not being able to be himself because he thought society would not accept him.  He would use Alison to help him decorate or clean the house but other than that he did not pay much attention to his children.  When he died his family all agree that it was a suicide, and it was most likely because he could not deal with being someone else in order to be accepted.  Before he died he and Alison had a connection where they both talked about their homosexuality.  He admitted being afraid of not being accepted by saying to Alison, "There've been a few times I thought I might have preferred to take a stand.  But I never really considered it when I was young."  This shows how at one point he had thought about coming out but instead decided that he would not be accepted for who he was.  From a young age, Alison became interested in very masculine things and acted almost like a boy.  Her father would try and force her to dress more like a girl should but she never really liked dressing like a girl.  I think he did this because he used to dress up like a woman when he was young and did not want his daughter to be like him.  When she went to college she discovered that she was a lesbian.  She told her parents and neither of them severely disapproved, and her dad even said, "At least your human, we should all experiment."  He basically accepted this fact and they even bonded because they had something so big in common.  Although it was not long before her father died when she found out he was gay, they talked to each other more in that period of time than they had in their lives.  They finally seemed to bond and understood each other more than anyone else.
          

Question #6

Alvarez takes the reader far beyond just the legend of the sisters.  Throughout the novel she shows how each one of the sisters grows more mature, and it tells the reader about their lives instead of only their part of the revolution.  By telling the sisters' stories, she makes them seem more like the human beings they are rather than portraying them as revolutionary heroes.  During the novel Alvarez takes a lot of time to make sure the reader sees the maturation of each of the sisters in order portray them as normal girls who grew up in an oppressed country with a normal family.  I think that Alvarez's purpose in telling their story is to let the reader know how her native country was rid of a tyrannical regime that kept them oppressed for years because she really appreciates the sisters' stories.  She also seems to want everyone to know the story because it is inspirational to the world and not just in the Dominican Republic.  The morals included in the novel can are universal and can give people hope who are oppressed today.  It is possible that she wants people to know their story because they are deserving of being remembered as who they were instead of just what they did.  The stories are examples of what can be accomplished by regular people with big ambitions.  One of the main morals in my opinion is, "if there's a will there's a way," because from the family they grew up in nobody would think that anybody part of it would be major contributors to the revolution, and especially since they were three girls.  They pretty much defied the odds due to the fact that they were women in an oppressed country, who also didn't all have a full education.  All they had was their determination and selflessness which would eventually lead to their triumph and in the end, death.  Instead of the girls being remembered as legends, Alvarez wants them to be remembered as the people they were and the difficulties they had to overcome.

Timeline

Patria Mirabel was born the oldest of her three other sisters in 1924, and lived with them and their mother and father as a child.  Throughout her childhood Patria was always very religious and motherly towards her three sisters.  At age 14, she went off to school at Inmaculada Concepcion where everyone thought she was going to be a nun and thought it to be a pity because of how pretty they said she was.  When she turned 16, she decided that the life of a nun was not her calling and did not go back to school with her sisters in the upcoming fall.  Patria began working with her father to help with the farm and a man named Pedrito, who worked for her father, caught her eye.  They quickly fell in love with each other and due to Patria's old-fashioned nature they wanted to get married even at that early age.  Her father wanted her to wait until she was 17 to get married but they ended up doing it earlier than previously arranged.  Shortly after their marriage they had two children, a boy and a girl, and later Patria gave birth to a stillborn baby.  After the loss of her child Patria started to lose her faith in religion because she couldn't understand how such a terrible thing could happen to her.  She eventually regained her faith once she and her family went on a pilgrimage to see the Vergincita, and she felt as if she was spoken by God when she touched the statue.  The years passed and at age 35, Patria's two children were almost all grown up and she was about to have another baby.  During her pregnancy she supports her sisters in the cause of trying to start a revolution, but she isn't exactly ready to help out herself.  She would provide them with a safe place to meet but did not get involved in any political matters.  In the same year Patria decided to go on a church retreat up in the mountains and thought the fresh air would be good for the baby in her womb.  While she was there the house they were in was bombarded by gunshots, smoke, and screaming, and she witnessed a group of young men get gunned down in front of her.  This was the moment she finally wanted to be part of whatever her sisters were getting themselves into because she finally was able to see that what their country needed was freedom.

A Teenage Girl's Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery

This story was one of the more powerful ones in the book.  It illustrates how sex slavery is very real and makes the reader really think about the harsh realities of sex slavery.  The girl narrator in the story describes very vividly some events that could potentially happen to anybody around the world.  For example she describes how she first became a sex slave, and how she watched her friends get taken to never be seen again.  She says, "My best friends were all screaming and crying."  This is the last image of her friends that she would ever see again, which really captures the essence of what is going on.  The story is supposed to be a guide to teenage girls all over the world who are or will be sex slaves.  She tells the reader how to act to their captor, and how you should never look them in the eyes or call them by their name.  She has a bunch of rules on how to act and what to do if you find yourself in that sort of situation, but basically the gist of the guide is just to never let the man be satisfied.  The last rule she gives is, "No one can take anything from you if you do not give it to them."  This is the overall summary of all the other rules.  This means to never give the captor any satisfaction as long as you can help it.  It means if you never let down your guard, never feel bad for him, and never look at him or call him his name, then the man can take nothing from you.  The girl also promotes trying to escape whenever the opportunity is presented, and she says it is worth trying even if there is a risk of dying.  I believe this story is meant to give people hope if they ever become a sex slave, and it is also about the awareness of sex slavery.  All of the rules include some sort of detail that captures some sort of aspect of sex slavery and causes the reader to feel sympathy for the girls.  This raises the awareness of the issue and could potentially reduce the amount of girls sold as slaves every year.

Dear Rihanna

I found the letter to Rihanna written by some teenage girl had a lot to say about many girls now days.  The girl talks about how she was practically in love with Rihanna and how she would do things like changer her hair style to match hers, or how she and the rest of the world was jealous of her.  In her mind Rihanna was the perfect human being who represented everything she couldn't be.  The fact that the girl really felt bad for Chris Brown and made him seem like the victim shows a lot about how she sees situations such as violence against women.  Throughout the letter the girl says multiple times, "He was so sad," in reference to Chris Brown.  This is an example of how the girl would try and make excuses and make it seem as if the man was the victim.  She would argue how she can see it in his eyes that he loves Rihanna and how the apology from him was very heartfelt.  This same feeling is probably shared with many girls around the world when they experience physical abuse by their partner.  They feel bad for the man after they are hit, because the man feels bad after he hits them.  Just because the man feels bad does not take back the fact that he hurt the woman is the message I believe Eve is trying to get across.  Also, the girl in the letter tells Rihanna how it was kind of her fault because she threw the keys to his car.  She says, "I don't know about you, but I'm not perfect.  I'm naggy and I complain, well at least that's what Brad tells me."  By saying this she is siding with her boyfriend who hits her, and making herself at fault.  She believes that she is the one causing her boyfriend to hit her because she annoys him and makes him mad.  There are many girls who are in denial of having an abusive relationship when in reality they have a serious problem.  I believe Eve wrote this to show how some girls need to realize the fact that they are being abused, and to give examples of someone who is in denial.

Question #4

Emotion plays a huge role in Eve's attempt to promote women and fuels her efforts.  Emotion is the key part in changing people's views on women and vaginas.  Throughout all of the monologues Eve uses many different emotions to suck the reader into the story and keep their attention in order to support the cause.  When she includes jokes in the stories it is to relieve some of the discomfort involved with reading some of the plays.  In the story "The Flood" the old women says, "I used to have crazy dreams, crazy dreams. Oh, there dopey. Why? Burt Reynolds."  This quote is a little joke from the monologue used to create a comfortable atmosphere when talking about potentially awkward material.  The story was about an old woman being interviewed about her vagina, which in some people's eyes could be viewed as inappropriate.  Using jokes can make it less of a "big deal" sometimes because laughter can be extremely stress-relieving.  Ensler also uses sadness and embarrassment to motivate the audience.  When people feel sad for the people in the stories it creates a sort of connection between the reader and the character in the story.  She also talks about things such as rape, and other types of violence against women to raise awareness about these topics instead of ignoring them.  She is very open with talking about these kind of taboo things in order to cause people to be aware of what women have to deal with, which could potentially cause some kind of change or at least an increase in awareness.

Vagina Monologues

Personally I think that the video of Eve Ensler was much more captivating and easier to understand than it is to read the monologues.  I feel as if while i am reading the stories, there is no emotion involved because it is up to the reader to interpret what the character is feeling.  It is also harder to follow the plot when there is nothing to watch and nothing to hear except what is in the individual's head.  While performing "The Flood" live, Eve did a very good job at telling the story of the old woman and even changed her voice to give the audience more of a sense of what is happening.  When I read "The Flood" I wasn't able to really get a feel for the way the women sounded, or the tone in which she was speaking.  Once I saw the video I was able to see how she sounded and the way she spoke, this changed my perception of the story and I feel like I understand it better now.  It seems as though Eve uses comedy, and her charisma to captivate her audience and get them to feel more comfortable about the subject matter.  This can only be portrayed in person rather than in a book because of the visual aspect involved.  In "The Flood" for example, The old woman says, "I can't tell you this. I can't do this, talk about down there. You just know it's there."  This is supposed to show the old woman's reluctance to talk about her private parts, but it is shown much more clearly when it is performed because she mimics the voice of the woman and paints a good picture of her attitude.  It is easy to understand the plot in each of the individual monologues, but in order to fully grasp the message and see the emotion involved with the monologues it is necessary to see it performed.

Vagina Monologues Question #1

I believe that Eve Ensler purposefully wrote this as a play and wanted it to be performed because as an audience people would get a lot more out of it than just reading it themselves.  The difference between reading the monologues and watching them be performed is when you are physically there, the play is made up of real people which creates more of an emotional bond to the actors and can reach people more deeply.  Also if the play is performed that means many people are there watching it which promotes more awareness to the subjects being portrayed.  She wants vaginas to be performed not only to promote awareness but also to really draw a picture for the audience.  When people read things the concepts are not quite as vivid because some things are left up to interpretation, but during plays everything is presented in front of the audience causing everyone to be on the same page for the lack of a better word.  The physical performance changes people's views on how they see and think about vaginas in the sense that people will now see them as more of a woman's body part, or something women have to deal with all the time, rather than thinking of them as something that we are forbidden to talk about because it is too personal.  The point is there is no such thing as too personal when a large portion of society has to deal with the same thing.

Vagina Monolouges Question #2

Eve Ensler believes that language is very important when talking about female body parts and she believes that the message being sent relies on the words you choose to describe something.  The words we use to describe body parts are very important because some words are displeasing and the very sound of them makes it hard to talk about specific subjects.  For example, Ensler says herself that the word "vagina" sounds like some kind of disease or just something bad instead of what it actually is referring to.  Many people are uncomfortable talking about vaginas because the sound of the word makes it seem like a very personal and embarrassing subject, when in reality it shouldn't be.  She lists many different words that also mean "vagina" in order to show the reader that it is just a word and if you call it something other than a vagina then the subject becomes less embarrassing.  If people could get past giggling after hearing "vagina" then people could start learning more about the physical nature of a vagina and deal with the issues that women have to face on an everyday basis.  I believe Ensler asked the women in the monologue, "What would your vagina wear?" because she wanted to lessen the awkwardness of having a personal discussion about their private parts.  I also think she wanted these women to get a feel for what they think of their vaginas.  For example, if the person said it would wear jeans then maybe this person is less comfortable with having sex and feels as though she should be covered up.  I believe Ensler's main goal in harping on how language is crucial when describing personal things such as vaginas is to get women to be more open with talking about their bodies and make them more comfortable talking about important issues that pertain to them.

Between the Pool and the Gardenias

This is one of my favorite stories out of the book "Krik? Krak!" because it is different than most in that it includes some sort of a twist at the end.  In the beginning, I thought that the woman found a living baby on the side of the road and was going to keep it and raise it as her own.  It turned out in the end that the baby was actually dead and the woman kept it because it was the closest thing she could get to having her own child.  I think she took the baby because all her life she has wanted to have her own baby and she also wanted a lot more things in her life that she could not have.  When speaking of the house and property that she worked at she said, "I pretended that it was all mine." When she says this it shows how much she wants a better life with better things, which leads me to believe that is why she kept the baby.  She was so used to pretending that she had things in which she actually did not have, it was very simple for her to pretend she had her own child even though it wasn't actually alive.  Once the woman started talking about how the baby was starting to smell really badly is when it is made known that the baby is dead.  I feel as if her decision to bury the baby in the garden really set her up to get caught in the end since many people walk throughout the yard.  When the pool guy saw what she was doing there really was no way to explain her way out of it because the truth was too unbelievable.  I think the ending was ironic because all she wanted was to have her own child and when she finally had one in her mind, she would then be severely punished for "murdering the baby." The significance of the title "Between the Pool and the Gardenias" is that is where she was stuck waiting for her fate to be decided.

Children of the Sea

This story, although the context is different, reminds me of the classic Shakespeare play, "Romeo and Juliet." The two stories are similar in many different aspects even though they are about two completely different cultures and time periods.  The two stories are about two people who are in love, and they both have to deal with the fact that they can never be with each other.  In the play, they cannot be with each other because their families are sworn enemies and the fathers won't stand for it.  In the story, the two lovers cannot be together because the man is an enemy of the country and has to flee, while the girl is forced to stay with her strict father who also does not like the man she loves.  In one of the girl's letters she says, "When we see each other again, it will seem like we lost no time." When she says this she shows that she still has hope that they will again be reuinited which sets up the ending to be a tragedy because they in fact will most likely never see each other again.  In, "Romeo and Juliet," Romeo is exiled thus making it impossible for him to be with Juliet just as the man in the story is basically cast out of Haiti forcing him to never see the girl again.  The ending of the two stories turn out slightly differently but they both end tragically in a sense.  Romeo and Juliet end up killing themselves because they cannot be with each other, while the man from Haiti is not said to be dead or alive but he is gone forever while the girl lives on without him. 

What He Said to His Enemies

When I came across this poem the title immediately caught my attention.  I first thought the poem was going to have something to do with physical enemies with names and faces.  After reading it, I realized that this poem was not about a man's enemies, but it was a poem about the enemies of a whole culture and that you have to stay strong when facing adversity.  I believe the story represents the hateful views that have been bestowed on the Middle East and how if people actually got to know some Arabs, they would see that there is no danger.  When speaking about the enemies it says, "They wanted to get him lost in the world of trees, stand silently forever, holding up his hands." I think this quote is supposed to show how people want everyone from the Middle East to just give up and agree that they are wrong and surrender, and be lost to the world as if they are trapped in the forest with no where to go.  The man in the story seems like he is trying to be resilient and just kind of let people believe what they want because he knows that he is not a bad person.  Also in the poem it says, "What made them think the world's room was so small?" I believe this is supposed to mean, why can't we all live in the world together with our own beliefs rather than hating everyone who disagrees with us?  The man in story seems very wise and loyal to his culture, and it also seems as if he wants his enemies to find him so they can see that there really is nothing there to hate.  He says to his enemies, "Come in, look for me where you think I am. Then when you see there is nothing there, then we can talk." This is a very symbolic quote because it is basically saying he wants his enemies to find him because when they do they will see there is no threat, and then they can begin to talk about there differences in a civilized manner.

Blood

In this poem the father tries to portray what a true Arab is compared to the recent change in culture.  It seems as though the father isn't fully capable of understanding the new way of life, and maybe simply does not want to.  The author writes, "I call my father, we talk around the news.  It is too much for him, neither of his two languages can reach it.  To me this shows that even though the father must be aware of the current problems going on in his land, he is just too old and accustomed to his way of life to try and adapt to the new situation.  Throughout the poem, both father and daughter are conflicted by two different cultures, the new way of life and the old.  According to the father true Arabs live by the old traditions and take pride in the way that they live.  I believe the reason they are sort of "ashamed" of the new culture is due to all of the negativity involved with people's views on it.  When describing a Palestinian boy dangling a toy truck on the front page of the news paper, she says, "Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root is too big for us. What flag can we wave?" This quote shows that since there are bad things happening in their country they do not know who to be loyal to, if anybody at all, because they do not fully believe in either culture anymore.  With all of the trouble of the conflicting cultures, the final question at the end of the poem sums up the moral of the poem which is, "What does a true Arab do now?"