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Showing posts from October, 2017

The Burning of the Magazines

“I threw the magazine into the flames. It riffled open in the wind of its burning; big flakes of paper came loose, sailed into the air, still on fire, parts of women’s bodies, turning to black ash, in the air, before my eyes.” In this short excerpt from “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Offered is remembering a time when she saw her mother and her mother’s friends burning magazines. What strikes me most about this section is the choppiness of the writing. When explaining how the magazine burned, she uses commas after every few words. When I read this, it reminded me of those flip books; the ones made up of images on paper that seem to move when quickly flipped through. What was the author, Margaret Attwood’s intention of doing this? I think it might reflect how Offered is forgetting her old life and that the world she used to know is slowly fading and becoming a series of still pictures that she can only look back on with little memory. The use of short descriptive words could also be reflec...

The Power of Thought and Imagination

Atwood explores the depths of thought and imagination to escape the present. Those in charge fear the possibilities of escape through imagination, not the physical act of running away: “It isn’t running away they’re afraid of. We wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge” (8). While the reader may initiating interpret the “cutting edge” as referring to ending one’s life, Atwood likely uses the imagery of the “cutting edge” to express how people expand the possibilities through escaping to the realms of thought and imagination. The narrator describes how avoiding thought helps pass time. Beyond thought and imagination, what other catalysts will enable people to escape their present lives and bring themselves back to the past or into a better future? A power struggle exists between what the characters want to do and what falls within “acceptable” behavior. The narrator “tempts” the guardian by purposefully accen...

Ruskin

I found myself getting very frustrated while reading Ruskin’s lecture. He would say something that was really great and then finish the sentence something entirely not great. After this happened multiple times I got annoyed and was wondering why we need to compare each other, and put each other into boxes of what we should be. I wanted to do my close reading on a passage that focused on these boxes to fit in. “We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respecting this question—quite vital to all social happiness.” My first question is what is the difference between queenly power and kingly power? I know when I think of it I think of the king then the queen but it if the king dies then...

10/20/17 Blog no. 8

From John Ruskin’s essay encompasses how rights for woman are not naturally obtained, but a privilege that can only be handed out by men, for the benefit of men. Ruskin says “we cannot determine what the queenly power of woman should be, until we are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed what is their true constant duty” (5). The premise for this idea is already establishing that ‘we’ means that men must agree to the terms of whatever rights women should/want to get. By using the term ‘should’ rather than ‘ought’ which is critical in understanding that his views towards women who ‘should’ have rights is a subjective opinion versus the term ‘ought’ which is an objective truth, and call for action. With the entire statement above, it does not mention any equality, just mentions some arbitrary power a woman has. By referring to the position of a ‘queen’ he also keep...
“She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side: wise, not with the narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable, modesty of service—the true changefulness of woman.” (69) The overall tone of the essay by John Ruskin is how women can be empowered, but not too empowered. This passage, unfortunately, is still applicable today. Back then, and still today, it is much harder for women to achieve power. Women constantly have to prove themselves, more so than men do. It seems that men are usually automatically trusted, while women are inherently doubted by their peers. This passage emphasizes what happens once a woman does finally achieve a position of power. “She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good,” because as soon...