My favorite reading this semester is “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, this short story was a bit comedic and relatable. A lot of us have gone into stores and have seen ridiculous prices for minuscule gadgets, a lot of us budget to buy stuff we need rather than want. One might think to themselves “why aren’t I in on it” like Sylvia thought. I found Sylvia’s personality so hilarious and spunky, she had control over the whole gang and when she didn’t she threw a fit. She disliked Miss Moore so much, but Sylvia did understand that Miss Moore was smart and could teach them things. Even though Miss Moore knew the such dislike Sylvia had for her she gave Sylvia leadership of the whole group, she gave her a sense of responsibility.
Daily Archives: December 12, 2022
5 posts
My favorite reading was the vignettes from the house on mango street because it was very relatable to many people as we saw from the discussion posts many people connected to different stories which shows just how much reach these vignettes have and for me I found many of them relatable to the point that it was difficult for me to pick one for each the past 2 weeks of discussion, overall it was a fun and enjoyable to read and was much easier to connect with at least for me than any of the other stories. Overall it was really cool to see how many different perspectives and different overall Storytelling was able to be told in one collection of stories compared to some of the other stories that were more focused on one or two types of stories compared to this collection that was able to tell it from so many perspectives.
Of everything we read this semester, my favorite was “The House on Mango Street.” I enjoyed reading this story because it is the only story that I genuinely connected with. I feel that an audience/reader wants a story when they are able to relate to themselves. They are able to realize that what they feel, what they think, and what they say are being thought, said, and felt by other people. This makes it very easy for the reader/audience to understand the reading and everything about it. In the discussions, I explained how the character moved to different places sounded a lot like me because I always explained to people where I moved from, and there was a long list of moving places, just like me. The author discussed how the father needed to go back home because of a family member’s death, and how it was the first time seeing the father cry, which brought a memory back so fast into my head. It is the only discussion board that I truly enjoyed because I loved sharing my thought on it.
This semester’s reading that had the most meaning for me was the story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. This story is very powerful and well-written in a way that shakes your core. As women, we can still experience situations like this one or at least hear about it on the news and it makes us think about male-female relationships. In the story, Connie puts a lot of weight on her physical appearance, and in the end, gets punished because of the way she looked. Would it be different if she looked different? should women hide their sexuality in order to be safe? Also, In our modern society, with the internet and higher education, it’s sad to see how people still stay in their primitive point of view; in which men have the power in a relationship and make all the decisions while women need to obey. Same as in sexual situations where women “lose” their power because they feel weak, and do things they don’t want to just to satisfy the men’s desires.
One of the vignette that stood out to me was 79-80, Rafaela who drinks coconut and papaya juice of Tuesdays” it gives of the the fairy tale Rapunzel, because she was so pretty and being locked up because her husband was afraid that she was going to leave tells us how insecure he were. Women don’t have any say in their decisions but men does , what they do and that they must be controlled and “locked away”. Being controlled just give me anxiety, i love that we live in this day and age where men cannot speak for us, we have the right to have our own opinion and stand up for our rights as women, like Maya Angelou said “We promise to accept nothing less than justice for every woman”. Esperanza must avoid being controlled and “locked away” so to speak and drifting into the wrong crowd. My pitfalls I must avoid are different because I have to avoid are slacking off on my schoolwork, but we both have to worry about falling into the wrong crowd.
