Category: Uncategorized

My draft is still shorter than I would like it to be at this point in the drafting schedule. I also realized that I don’t really like writing in sections, I prefer to write the paper based on what’s going on in my head at the moment. For example, I might be discussing marriage one moment, then the next thing I write has nothing to do with that topic. I like writing down the thoughts as they come then rearranging them after I’m done. I think what might work better for me in the future is to plan out how many pages I should have written, not what section I want to write about.

Something I like about my draft so far is that I have picked out a lot of quotes that I would like to use in my paper. I want the person who is reviewing my draft to look at the quotes I want to discuss and have them pick the ones that work the best. I also want them to tell me if some would work paraphrased or if I should just briefly give some context.

So far I’ve been outlining what I want to talk about in my paper. I decided to make separate Google Docs for each section so it’s a little less daunting, and also easier to take notes for each section. I’ve also been working on dissecting my sources more and deciding what I would like to include in my paper versus what I can exclude. The notes include what quotes I want to incorporate from my sources, as well as examples from the novel that I want to use. I also have a more general outline of what points I would like to hit somewhere in each section. Since I haven’t finished my draft, I thought that it would be helpful to include this just so I can get a second opinion of it.

I’m a little worried about the progress of my paper. I think now that I don’t have other work for this class to work on, and work from my other classes are slowing down as well, I can focus more on working on this paper. I think my main issue was making time for this paper, especially since I’m someone who likes to wait until the last minute to finish assignments, it’s sometimes a struggle to work on the assignment this far before it’s due. However, needing to come into class with a draft keeps me more accountable than how I would be on my own, even with the calendar that I wrote out for myself.

I really enjoyed reading Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. My favorite part of it was right after she found out she had cancer and she shot up into outer space. I think that this really illustrates how she feels lonely and scared in a place she knows nothing about. I think something else that really adds to the book is that this is a true story, and that the author and illustrator went through this exact thing. This makes some scenes much more devastating, specifically the scene where she doesn’t want to tell Silvano she has cancer because she’s scared he’s going to leave her. This is a real fear and it happens all the time. In one of my psychology classes we talked about how when the wife gets sick it becomes “too much” for the husband and a lot of the time the husband will leave. However, if the husband gets sick, the wife typically will stay and take care of him. I think that the character knowing this, and that there’s a chance that he might leave her, makes this even more terrifying for her. I also like how this is illustrated because it’s comforting for her. The author likes to illustrate and draw cartoons, and I think that using this format is helping her express herself in a comfortable way.

I decided to start with the section that discusses the “ideal woman” because I feel like I know the most about that topic. I feel like it’s also the main purpose of my paper, and while the other two topics are important, I feel like this is what I really want to discuss the most in my paper. I think it would be easier to talk about the main part of my paper, then write the other two sections that can connect to the part that I’m writing about. Something else I was working on was going through my sources for this section. I looked them over and created a separate document of sections that I would like to use in my paper. This helps me narrow down what I should start talking about or at least something I can focus on working towards.

The hardest part is trying to figure out where to start. There’s so much that I want to talk about and so many options on where I can go. It’s also hard deciding what I should be adding from each source and how much I should add from the source versus how much I should be saying. I did try to narrow it down by going through my sources and finding pieces that I really want to talk about, but it’s still hard to narrow down what I can include and what I can’t.

I think the next section I want to write about is the genre. This should be easier for me to write because I also have some understanding of this topic. These two sections are also supposed to be my longest sections of the paper, so after I finish these two topics, the majority of my paper should be out of the way.

This is the first time I’ve heard about the novel Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. However, from the excerpt that I’ve read so far, I really like it. Page 12 was one of my favorite pages, I really liked how the reader could feel the narrator’s anxiety building and how much pressure is put on mothers in the workplace. This is really shown with the sentence length which shows how frantic she’s getting. This page also shows how women are supposed to “do it all.” The previous pages described how the narrator was well-educated and had her “dream job,” while her husband had less education and was the one who continued to work after she gave birth. This especially shows how women are expected to give up their life and sacrifice their dreams for the baby, while men can continue going to work and let their wives take care of the house and child. This is shown in the scene where she wakes up in the middle of the night to take care of the crying baby while she describes her husband as an immovable rock. She’s clearly sleep deprived and is beyond exhausted and when she hears the baby cry she feels frustrated because all she wants to do is sleep. When she reacts negatively and her husband has to take care of the baby, he ends up calling her a bitch. This scene really stuck out to me because the minute he has to help out or do any work regarding the child he gets upset. Even though he called her this in a “joking” manner, this term has been used against women for a long time and runs deeper than just a simple joke.

I chose to use a physical grid to organize my paper. Since I already had note cards of the sections I wanted to discuss and separated my sources physically, I really needed something more similar to a list to keep track of everything. I like being able to move my notecards around to see what works best-almost like a puzzle- but then I need to come back and be able to write it out and finalize what my plan is. I realized that I want one or two more sources each for my “ideal woman” and “genre” sections. I think my one section that focuses on the time period is more about the context and not something I can use to support my thesis, so I don’t need as much for that section. I also decided to move the time period category up so it’s the first one I discuss since so much of it is about the background. Since the ideal woman and the genre sections are what I really want to focus on and since they flow together pretty well, I wanted to talk about those later on in my paper than the historical context. I think the hardest part of my outlining was trying to determine how many pages each section would be. I don’t usually outline my papers because they usually aren’t this long, so trying to figure out how long I want each part is difficult. I think what made the process easier was mapping it out a little in class before figuring out the outline.

I really like reading the excerpt of Stone Butch Blues, which is something that I’ve never read about before. I think the division of the femmes and the butch’s roles were really interesting. The protagonist trying to learn from Al, a mentor, shows how confusing the lines can be. For example, the protagonist was confused multiple times throughout the passage about what was expected. Even though there are lines of whats expected of both parties, there’s still definitely a sense of community. This is shown through the main character’s relationship with Al and Jacqueline, and how they acted like parents to the protagonist. These women all have something traumatic in their lives, and together they feel safe. The jail scene made me emotional. Reading about what these women had to go through to receive bail and the mental impacts after was devastating. Seeing what happened to the community after the police raid, and knowing that stuff like this happens in real life, made the impact even stronger.

I feel like after finding about two or three sources it became a lot harder to find sources. There were plenty of sources available, it just wasn’t what I was aiming for. The sources also became longer in length so it took longer to read through all the sources. It also became a little annoying when I would find a source I thought I would really like, but then when it began to analyze something I found that it didn’t fit what I needed. So far, I’m finding a lot of information on societal standards of women today, and while it’s good to have maybe one or two articles to show how it’s relevant to today, it’s hard not to include everything I find. It’s also been a little difficult to find things on the time period of my primary text. Sometimes it get irritating when I type something in and it excludes the time period. I feel like so far I’ve seen that feminists don’t like the romance genre that much. I consider myself a feminist and I also love romance so I’m in a weird middle ground. I think that it’s more towards how it was presented in the time, which a lot of these articles are from between the 1960s to early 2000s, so it was presented differently than it is now. I found a source I really liked which was written by Joanne Hollows, so hopefully I can incorporate something in my final paper.

I wish I had more snippets from A Thousand Splendid Suns because I’ve never read it before and I really liked the reading. I think after having the article explaining all of the different themes that were in the novel, it was a lot easier to pick out what stood out the most. The gendered oppression and constrained agency theme stood out the most to me during the reading. I always love reading through a feminist lens so it’s naturally what stands out to me the most. Two lines that stuck out to me were: “this is what it means to be a woman in this world” and “a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman.” Both of these quotes are directly correlated to how patriarchy impacts women. These lines show how women are forced to comply with men’s standards.

I also like the comparison between Rosalind and Viola in the two Shakespeare plays. I think these snippets really show how Viola is dragging out her unveiling. Even when her brother is in front of her, she still doesn’t want to change back into Viola again. Rosalind also drags out her disguise by not immediately jumping back into herself. I think that the play could’ve ended a lot sooner if she revealed herself to Orlando when he announces that he is searching for her. Both of these women show that they enjoy and are comfortable in their male disguises which also shows how they can be uncomfortable being a woman in their time. They have certain expectations they are forced to uphold, such as marriage, and they might not quite be ready for that yet. I think that Rosalind essentially spying on Orlando really helps her decide whether or not he is worthy of her and if she really is interested in marrying him.

I’m choosing to focus on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for my research paper. Pride and Prejudice was a movie that my mother showed me a few years ago and we would rewatch it all the time. It’s one of my favorite movies and (after reading the book) is one of the reasons why I became an English major. I would love to be able to talk about one of my favorite pieces of literature that meant so much to my mom.

In my paper I want to compare Jane and Elizabeth as the “ideal woman” in society in the 1800s. Jane very much conforms to what society wants from her, while Elizabeth rejects it and doesn’t care what people think of her. I want to talk about how she’s a strong heroine who doesn’t let society dictate her life. I want to look at how everything women learn or hobbies they are interested in is just preparation for marriage- how even their own choices and interests are in favor of their future husband.

I will be using The Oswald Review as my target for my paper. I think that my idea will be best suited for this journal because a lot of the other papers have similar topics, specifically feminism and female authors.

I want to find out more about how the women who read this novel at that time perceived it. Did they view it as a cute romance book? Or as a criticism of society and even when you reject society you still conform to it? I also want to know how the men perceived it- was it a tool to convince women they should get married or to conform to societal standards?