When I Was Growing Up: This was one of my favorite pieces of work. I really appreciate Nellie Wong's rawness and honesty. I felt especially strong about the fourth and fifth stanzas, as Wong describes how one dimensional beauty can be, “when I was growing up, I read magazines/and saw movies, blonde movie stars, white skin,/sensuous lips and to be elevated, to become/a woman, a desirable woman, I began to wear/imaginary pale skin.” I think as a culture, women are conditioned to believe that beauty only comes in one form. If women are too big or too imperfect or don't have the right clothes or aren't tan enough with sparkling white teeth and perfect breasts and aren't overtly sexual, they just do not fit the mold and are classified as different or grotesque; the opposite of beauty. I think Wong is touching on this idea extremely well. I felt extreme sadness when I read these lines not only for this unattainable idea of beauty that is beat into a woman's head but also because of what women will do to change their differences no matter how drastic, for the speaker in this poem, it is changing her skin color entirely.
Ain't I A Woman?: I really love Sojourner Truth's sort of journal style entry. It is powerful and strong; her voice is piercing. I love when she describes the scene of Eve, “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back.” I think this is fabulous twist of the reality women have been taught. Truth is proving that in fact instead of women feeling inferior to men, men should actually be in fear of women for their power and ability to “turn the world upside down all alone.” She is giving power and control back to women showing them that perhaps we are stronger than we have thought all along.
Lady Lazarus: Admittedly, I was a bit confused by Sylvia Plath's complex poem but at the end of the poem, I was struck with a beautiful feeling. Upon reading the last stanza, “Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air.” I love Plath's raw ending to her poem. It instills a sense of independence and control within me. The speaker, instead of letting men bury her in the ash, rises above it and “eats them like air.” This description sort of defies all stereotypes regarding women being entirely dependent on men.
The quote that you used from Sojourner Truth's speech was the same one that I focused on. I realliy liked that Truth was almost warning men against the power of women. A "you've already seen the power that we have to change the world once, don't think that we won't change the world now" type of attitude. She takes the superior attitude that men possessed and used it to spark fear and worry in them about the power men hold in the grand scheme of things. I think that this is significant because Truth shows women as tough. She creates this fear of women and what they are capable of, which I think forces men to re-examine their own perceptions of women and what they are capable of achieving. She breaks the stereotype of a traditional women. She works, she eats, she is strong, but she is still a woman. She shows her audience that there is more than one type of woman and that all types should be respected and valued to the same degree.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about "when i was growing up." The quote you chose is the quote I am focusing on for my collage. I think it is terrible what magazines say and imply about beauty and what beauty looks like. Younger girls are starting to have access to these magazines and it is just going to start the brainwashing even earlier. I love the Dove campaign with the real ordinary women, i think this is a great start for our society to change the terrible ways. People will truly do anything to be "beautiful."
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