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In high school, I remember I wasn’t a huge fan of writing. I felt like I put in more effort than some of my classmates and while I was finished with my writing, others weren’t. When you’re in an environment that is so anti-writing, you aren’t really motivated to write either. I think the only enjoyable writing that I did in high school was the research paper in junior year. I was able to choose what topic I was interested in, which is somewhat rare in high school, which is why I enjoyed it. I also like my college comp. classes as well because a lot of the work was similar to what I did for that paper. I really like being able to choose what I write about and research, instead of writing about the same thing as everyone else in my class. However, I do struggle finding topics to write about because it’s such a broad assignment. I feel like if I have too much freedom, it becomes hard to find a topic.

On the opposite end, I don’t really like writing about myself. I feel like I don’t have that many interesting stories and when teachers ask me to write about a time in my life when something interesting happens I get stuck. In high school, I was never really able to leave the house that much until I got my license, and at that point I was almost in college. I like creating stories, but I really don’t like telling stories that have already happened.

I feel like I haven’t done that many research papers outside of my freshman year college classes, and I’m a little nervous about the research paper for my senior seminar class. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had to write a research paper that I don’t really know where to start. I think it can become overwhelming with the amount of articles that pop up for every search. I think this can be a fun assignment, especially since I’m able to talk about almost anything that I want to about women’s bodies, which is a topic that I find really interesting already. I think if I choose the right primary text and topic I will really enjoy this paper.

On ChatGPT I prompted: Summarize the article “Menopause and Hysteria in Victorian Medical Texts and Rhonda Broughton’s ‘Mrs. Smith of Longmains” by Louise Benson James. The AI tool broke down the article into a few different parts: the core argument, the key points, and the main takeaway. I don’t like using AI, so it was definitely interesting to see what it would do with an academic article. I feel like it really broke down and took away a lot of the hard work that James did to research for the paper. I feel like the AI tool condensed too much and it really took away from the connection to “Mrs. Smith of Longmains.” Something that the article did well was use a literary connection, while ChatGPT glazed over it and didn’t use any of the examples that James used in her writing. I think that ChatGPT did do a decent job at explaining how menopause and hysteria was viewed during the Victorian period. Overall, I think that using an AI tool is a good starting place to get a grasp of the key points. Using this before reading the article can help with the comprehension of an article, especially since journal articles can be tricky to read sometimes. I don’t think that I would use an AI tool for my research paper because I feel like it can take away from my writing and my voice. Seeing the outcome of the prompt, I feel like it took a lot away from the writer’s voice and I think I would prefer to read the whole article. Otherwise, I might be missing the connections made or details that the AI tool just didn’t think was important enough to include.

Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body is a heartbreaking story about someone dealing with grief. The narrator is trying to find their way back into society, but they don’t know where they belong. Even at the end of the novel, the narrator feels a deep sense of regret for leaving their beloved, and also stuck because they could not find their love when returning back home. The end of the novel shows how grief does not end and will always be a part of you. I really connected to this novel because I know what it feels like to have someone you love be diagnosed with an illness that will take them away from you. I think in that sense, this book can be very relatable to a lot of people, even if the person is not a romantic partner. I thought a lot about my mom while reading this story and how I also did similar things as the narrator did. The narrator went to the library and studied everything they could about their beloved’s illness. They also tried to distract themselves in work, or finding other people to hang out with. These are all things that I also went through.

I watched City of Joy recently, which is about a center in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is dedicated to women who have been raped. This center is to help the women recover both physically and mentally. This was a completely different circumstance, but the healing process still uses those 5 stages. The women eventually would reach acceptance in the center, being surrounded by women like them and learning how to defend themselves. Watching this movie right before I read this novel really showed the difference in healing processes and how the stages of grief present themselves.

When the narrator returned home at the very end of the novel, it reminded me of stages of grief. I didn’t really pick it up while I was reading it, but reflecting on it now I feel like I could pick out the different stages of grief that the narrator went through. At the end of the story, it felt like acceptance that they would never see each other again.

“Motherhood” by Georgia Douglas Johnson is a heartbreaking poem describing her choice to have an abortion. This choice is even more tragic because she wants a child and is already attached, but she believes the world is too cruel and not safe enough. This reminds me of the bill that Senator Mark Pody is attempting to pass that would charge women who have an abortion with murder, and in some cases would allow for the death penalty. A few hours ago an article came out saying that he wouldn’t be able to pass the bill because he doesn’t have enough votes, but the thought that someone even tried to pass this as a law is terrible. This also proves that Johnson’s poem is an accurate representation of today’s society. If her child was a girl, she would also have to deal with the war against women’s bodies and also might have to face laws like these in her future. The lines “You do not know the monster men / Inhabiting the earth” (Johnson 13-14) show that Georgia’s biggest fear are the men in the world, and how inhumane they are. It also makes them sound alien, the word “inhabit” makes me think of some alien species or disease that is invading a host’s body. This also has me connecting this to Rossetti’s life and her poem “Goblin Market.” These both use monstrous figures to represent men which further shows the connection between the two women and their poems.

Chapter 17 of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening really shows how little Edna’s opinions matter. Edna told her husband that she left the house for a little bit and he asked her for a “suitable excuse” (Chopin 130) and when she didn’t have an excuse to his standards she received a lecture. Mr. Pontellier looked over the people she missed and told her how she should respond to them. The responses to the women were all based on what power the men had. For example, Edna has to respond in a very positive manner to Mrs. Belthrop because her husband is rich. Mr. Pontellier made a big deal of Edna missing all these women and it would be her fault for any missed opportunities. Then he leaves after he doesn’t like the dinner and gives her a vague response to where he’s going after making such a big deal about where Edna was all day. This shows how controlling he is over her and how he treats Edna like she’s some bird in a cage while he’s free to do whatever he wants. I liked the following scene where Edna is on her own and throws her wedding ring on the ground and tries to crush it. Even though she eventually puts it back on her finger, it symbolizes how unhappy she is in her marriage and with her husband. This line in the following chapter: “she felt no interest in anything about her” (Chopin 138) is also very telling of how Edna really feels about both her marriage and her children. She’s really starting to see herself and how she feels trapped in her life.

Kate Chopin’s The Awakening does a great job at showing the oppression of women in society. The main character, Edna, struggles internally with her role as a mother and a wife. This quote stuck out to me: “at a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life–that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions” (Chopin 35). Edna’s tells the audience in a straightforward manner that she feels like she has to perform for the people around her. She has her own thoughts about the life she’s living and she feels like she has no choice but to conform to what society wants. This is further pursued when she thinks about her children and the attachment she has with them: “their absence was a sort of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself. It seemed to free her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had not fitted her” (Chopin, 48). Edna likes her children, but she also didn’t have a choice in the matter. She just sees them as a responsibility that she has to deal with, similar to how she views her husband. This reminded me of this woman on TikTok who has a long and ongoing list of reasons why women should not have children. After a new video of a child doing something horrendous or after learning something new about the birth process and how that impacts a women’s health, she adds a new item to the list. If Edna had more of a choice in having children, she would find the list interesting because it’s basically a pros and cons list. Since she views having children a duty or responsibility, she would find this list useful in determining whether or not she would want children.

The graphic memoir Tomboy by Liz Prince does a really good job with showing identity and societal pressures to conform. It also shows the importance of parental support in learning about identity. I just wrote about a short personal narrative about a time a book influenced me, and a big part of my narrative was about my struggle with figuring out how I liked to present myself. When I was younger, I felt that being “girly” meant that I couldn’t be strong or couldn’t reach certain goals in life. I started to dislike wearing dresses and doing stereotypical “girly” things. It took me a while, but I discovered I could still achieve what I wanted to even if I presented myself in a more feminine manner, so this reading connected to me in a more personal way because even though I don’t present myself in the same way as the author.

I also like the references to the princesses because I mentioned the same thing in my writing. So many movies geared towards young girls show how dainty women are and how the men have to save them. I makes girls feel inferior and also makes them feel like they can’t reach the goals they want to. One of my favorite princesses is Tiana because she worked hard to get what she wanted. Merida is also a princess that stood out to me because she fought for what she wanted. She didn’t have a prince waiting for her (nor did she want one to) and she defied societal standards because she didn’t want to fit in.

I also like how the author mentions how she likes to draw and her dream job was to become an animator and the style of the memoir was through drawings. This also added to Prince’s identity as being a creative person and shows that she achieved her goal in the end.

The novel Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo focuses on the lives of women of color throughout different generations. What really caught my interest in Chapter 5 was the addition of a man’s (Roland’s) perspective. I think it was important to add his point of view because from an outside perspective he can often be annoying and condescending to the women around him. When someone begins a conversation with him, Roland tends to over-explain and add some kind of history or philosophical lesson to it, which frustrates the people he talks to. However, another main character, Shirley, understands him in a way that no one around him does. Shirley had an encounter with Roland, and after the encounter she realized he was putting on a facade. Roland feels like that people will only respect him if he sounds intelligent and sophisticated. In Roland’s perspective the reader sees how Roland struggles with his identity as an African man and how he’s treated in society. I think that it’s very important that men also have their struggles, especially mentally, which society tends to neglect. At first, I also became annoyed with Roland, his mindset, and how he acts, but once I read further I understood him. I think Evaristo added the perfect amount of male perspective, since the novel is supposed to focus on the lives of women, but she also noted that men struggle too.

Something else that really caught my attention was the Epilogue. I enjoyed learning more about Penelope, a character who didn’t really seem to have a happy ending in her portion of the text. I was emotional in this last portion because she finally found her birth family, which is something she’s always wanted. She also finally found a husband that truly loves her, and her daughter still keeps in contact with her. Originally, Penelope’s story made me sad because she was so close to getting everything she wanted and it all went up in flames. This ending not only was happy, but also ended the novel in a way that tied multiple characters together. The reader sees the importance of the mother/daughter connection and how even when they were separated for eighty years they found their way back to each other.

Hi! My name is Natalie and I’m an English Education major. I also have a concentration in Shakespeare and a minor in psychology. My goal is to become an English teacher (I’m still deciding between middle and high school). One day, I would also love to teach psychology because it was always my favorite class in high school outside of English. What really got me into English was reading for fun at home during Covid. I was never really interested in what I had to read for school, but when I found books for myself, I started to enjoy reading. My favorite genres are fantasy and romance (even better if they’re combined). I really love genres that take me on some kind of adventure and out of today’s world. Some of my favorite book series are: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, and Folk of the Air by Holly Black. I also enjoyed a lot of readings from my classes in college because it got me out of my comfort zone and what I typically read. I took a Shakespeare class one semester and I really enjoyed reading his plays, which is how I ended up with a Shakespeare concentration. I also really liked reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and the feminist lens that I read it through in class.

Feminism is an interest of mine and I enjoy reading and learning new things related to women’s rights. I’m excited to read novels, short stories, and poems about women and how society sexualizes and treats them. I’m also excited to learn more about how attitudes towards women changed over the years and how that is reflected in works of literature. I’ve never written a long research paper before and I’m looking forward to learning how to plan and write one throughout the semester. I’m also looking forward to discussing the texts with my peers and have a more conversational class instead an hour long lecture every class. Finally, I’m looking forward to learn more about my classmates and their ideas about feminism and the texts we’re discussing. I like learning about other peoples ideas and opinions and why the think in the way that they do, and I can’t wait to do this in class with my peers.

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