ENCW 202 Spring 2020
Posted in Autonomy, Captivity, Consent, Desire, Desperation, Fantastic on Apr 6th, 2020
In “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” the narrator spends a lot of his time explaining things to “future readers.” In the first paragraph, he writes: Because what do we know of other times really? How clothes smelled and carriages sounded? Will future people know, for example, about sound of airplanes going over at night, since airplanes […]
Posted in Consent, dystopia, Social Fears, Solitude, Utopia on Apr 5th, 2020
In an interview with The New Yorker, George Saunders mentions that the inspiration for “The Semplica Girl Diaries” came from a dream that he had many years ago; he then goes on to say the following: “Einstein said (or, at least, I am always quoting him as having said), ‘No worthy problem is ever solved […]
Posted in Consent, Desire, Loneliness on Jan 30th, 2020
Bound by an outer shell of a paperback book, Mothers from Carmen Machado’s “Her Body And Other Parties” lets us into the mind of a woman who rolls with the punches. Locked in an abusive relationship, she remains nameless to the reader but we see her so clearly. Mara, a child who cries non-stop and stresses […]
The “Husband Stitch” is an eerie and uncomfortable tale. Carmen Maria Machado’s story, overall, is about a woman who wears a green ribbon all her life, and throughout the story, the husband is attempting to untie the ribbon sneakily and without her consent. However, in the final scene, she allows him to untie the ribbon, which […]