ENCW 202 Spring 2020
Posted in The Unconscious on Feb 27th, 2020
In “Difficult at Parties,” a woman experiences a sexual trauma and, while trying to rebuild her sex life with her partner, can suddenly hear the internal thoughts of actors in porn videos. Machado takes otherworldly scenarios and brings them into our world to critique the intricacies of the feminine experience. “Difficult at Parties” begins in the […]
Posted in Mystery on Feb 27th, 2020
Insecurity and uncertainty are two main themes that come out throughout the story “The Resident.” Not only is the uncertainty obvious inspections, but it is also written in where the readers become uncertain and insecure in the reading of the text. “The woman I did and did not recognize called herself by a name that […]
Posted in Desire on Feb 27th, 2020
The beginning of “Difficult at Parties” introduces what we assume to be a domestic abuse scenario where the woman is the abuser, causing bruises, demanding, and yelling. Moreover, the male, as we know at the time, has the brunt of the abuse. However, the assumption is pushed aside as we learn that the narrator is […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 27th, 2020
“The Resident” is a short story with many twists and turns. The main character is struggling with multiple difficulties during her time at the residency: sickness, temptation, loneliness, social conflict, and flashbacks from the troubles she faced in her youth. Throughout her time at the residency, the main character began to create a sharp eye […]
Posted in Senses and Words, The Unconscious on Feb 27th, 2020
In “Difficult at Parties,” there is a sense of ambiguity about the narrator’s recent trauma, although just enough is given to glimpse into what may have happened. She is bruised, there is pain, a cop calls, and it seems like there is a care taken concerning the sex life she has with Paul. It is […]
Posted in Doubling, Longing for Answers on Feb 27th, 2020
While reading “The Resident,” I concluded that this is one of the most interesting stories we have read this semester. The complexity of the main character struggling to find her memories while juggling her writing and anti-social tendencies was really interesting. It left me, as a reader, wondering if the main character had experienced something that made […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 27th, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado’s Difficult at Parties is making the reading constantly having questions about what is going to happen. Machado is doing this on purpose, as she is enticing you to continue reading to see if the questions you are forming are answered later in her writing. She is wanting you to question what is […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 25th, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Resident” exists in the realm of psychological horror. In an interview with The Atlantic, Machado states, “In my work, I think non-realism can be a way to insist on something different. It’s a way to tap into aspects of being a woman that can be surreal or somehow liminal — certain […]
Posted in Disappearance, Transformations on Feb 25th, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado takes the phrase “Real Women Have Bodies” literally as her story with that title follows an outbreak of mysterious disappearances by women, but the women who “disappear” do not vanish, just merely exist as a spiritual entity that cannot be touched by the physical world. Through the protagonist and her relationship with Petra, the amount of time […]
Posted in Desire, Disappearance, Loneliness, Obsession on Feb 24th, 2020
These two stories by Carmen Maria Machado were paired together for a very specific reason; they have the same message. While “Real Women Have Bodies” is more about women losing themselves and fading away into nothingness (with only their souls remaining), “Eight Bites” is about one woman in particular who’s unhappy with her body and […]
Posted in Desperation, Motherhood, Transformations on Feb 24th, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado’s “Eight Bites” is a lyrical story told by a woman who has become dissatisfied with her body, and she decides to follow her sisters by having bariatric surgery. She wants to be “normal” like her mother had been, although her mother was not normal, as we see by her taking only eight bites […]
Posted in Transformations on Feb 24th, 2020
When I was reading this story, I struggled with whether the procedure was a good or bad thing. My feminist brain told me it was bad; no woman should have to get a surgery to love herself and her body, especially a surgery that renders her unable to eat properly. But on the other hand, […]
Posted in Desperation, Mystery on Feb 23rd, 2020
Machado’s “Real Women Have Bodies” opens with a jarring sentence by the narrator: “I used to think my place of employment, Glam, looked like the view from inside a casket.” The reader instantly knows this is a dark tale and expects death, or something that resembles it, as the story unfolds. The protagonist lives a […]
Posted in Desire, Motherhood, Obsession, Transformations on Feb 21st, 2020
For the most part, “Eight Bites” is not a very fantastical story. Until we learn the consequences of the narrator’s life-changing surgery, it feels as if this story could be set in our own world; plenty of people undergo surgeries to reduce their weight or suppress their appetite, and it’s not completely implausible that a person could only survive […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2020
In Steven Millhauser’s “The Tower,” the audience is introduced to a tower that represents that of the Biblical tower of Babel. While we are all aware that the people of Babylon failed to build a tower reaching up to heaven, Millhauser uses the horizontal and vertical world as a tool to present different problems that […]
Posted in Doubling on Feb 20th, 2020
“The Other Town” is about a town that is being completely replicated in an adjacent town, even down to the smallest details. The odd part is that nobody lives in this replicated town; however, it is frequently visited by residents of the adjoining town. It is compared to a museum during the story. In spite of these […]
Posted in Doubling on Feb 20th, 2020
We are slaves to technology and in Steven Millhauser’s short story “The Other Town,” the nation seems to comment on our TV-dominated lives. In the story, a strange little tale is told about two towns that are exactly alike in nearly every way. They are separated by a small swath of woods that could easily […]
Posted in Transformations on Feb 20th, 2020
Steven Millhauser’s “The Tower” is a genre of the fantastic that elevates itself to the heavens within the first sentence. As the section within Dangerous Laughter suggests, the story is about the impossible architecture of a tower that reaches and penetrates the heavens. What is interesting, which is seen as well in “The Dome,” is that […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2020
While reading “The Tower” my brain latched onto several possible metaphors or possible themes. The first thing I thought it could be trying to instill is “the grass is always greener.” The people inside the tower either want to get higher or return to the ground or even further, tunnel into the ground. No one […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2020
Upon first glance in “The Other Town,” the narrator seems to be describing the daily life of a town that has an exact replica. However, the story shifts from describing the “other town,” comparing it to the town where everyone resides, to the political conflicts that arise from having the unused, additional town. The two […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 20th, 2020
The characters in The Other Town were struck with a tendency to pry into other people’s business. I was interested in this because the similarity of the towns became a point at which the people were able to see into the lives of others. Scandals, personal matters, and other parts of everyday life were […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 19th, 2020
Steven Millhauser’s “The Other Town” has created a town that is like a museum to the neighboring town. He even has the guards like a museum would have. This is the first sign of it being a museum like, as in a real town, they wouldn’t be referred to as “town guards” they would […]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 18th, 2020
In “The Dome,” narrated in the first person, Steven Millhauser uses satire to tell a man versus nature story in which domes are being placed over estates to produce perfect conditions. The weather is controlled, at least in the summer, for they have not yet discovered how to heat a dome effectively. In the beginning, […]
Posted in Desperation, Obsession, Senses and Words on Feb 17th, 2020
Steven Millhauser’s “History of a Disturbance” has a sense of unease and tension from the beginning. Though nothing fantastic happens directly (everything strange seems to be in the narrator’s head), Millhauser’s use of language, syntax, and point-of-view provide readers with a sense of something that just isn’t quite right. The story begins in the second-person: […]
Posted in Desire, Mystery, Senses and Words on Feb 17th, 2020
Almost every story we’ve read so far by Steven Millhauser in Dangerous Laughter has centered around a modern, suburban town slowly slipping into madness. It may not even have to be the town itself, but rather just the town’s residents. In the short story “Dangerous Laughter”, we witness a small town fixated on this idea of […]