ENCW 202 Spring 2020
Posted in Autonomy, Defiance, Desire, Disappearance, Fantastic, Isolation, Obsession on Mar 29th, 2020
As I was preparing to write this post, I became curious about fashion trends throughout history that we, as modern people, might consider fantastic if there was no evidence to support their existence. One example is lotus shoes, which can only be worn by women with bound feet; foot binding was an ancient tradition for […]
Posted in coronavirus, Disappearance on Mar 19th, 2020
For a moment, take yourself out of reality. Pretend that what is happening is on a television screen or the pages of a novel. It seems far-fetched, almost impossible to imagine as reality. It might even seem like a tired concept. After all, how many movies are based around a mysterious pandemic sweeping the nation? […]
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, Disappearance, Mystery on Feb 13th, 2020
Yoko Ogawa’s Memory Police is a translated script by Stephan Snyder, this dystopian novel that takes place on this unknown and unnamed island. The residence of this island lives in a world where things are slowly disappearing. For example, at the beginning of the story roses are no longer a thing and the people on this […]
Posted in Disappearance on Feb 13th, 2020
One of the first expectations I had when reading The Memory Police was that the narrator would be the one with the “special powers,” AKA not forgetting things. In most books, especially YA novels, the main character is the one who is different from the others. Honestly, it took me a little while to realize that the […]
Posted in Disappearance on Feb 13th, 2020
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa has a slower build-up to the horrors of the fantastic. While the story starts by throwing us into the fantastic circumstances of this reality, it slows down the events as they are told. In short stories, readers get to speed through a story and not get all the necessary […]
Posted in Disappearance on Feb 13th, 2020
“…things I thought were mine and mine alone can be taken away much more easily than I would have imagined.” (pg.163) The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa contains a story within a story. The stories mirror each other, seemingly without the realization of the narrator/ novelist. In the main story, the narrator, along with others […]
Posted in Disappearance, Uncategorized on Feb 12th, 2020
There is something of a terrible twist to reality in Ogawa’s The Memory Police. It isn’t just that things disappear, but that almost every person disappears entirely. And in a way, that is true to life. Although, disappearance in real life is typically not so sudden. But it made me think of the movie Amadeus and the character […]
Posted in Disappearance, Loneliness on Feb 11th, 2020
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa represents an experience everyone goes through at some point in their lives. Though many may handle it differently, the idea of loss penetrates our bubbles of happiness when we least expect it. On an island, a group of people named The Memory Police will take things at random from the […]
Posted in Disappearance, Mystery on Feb 11th, 2020
The dystopian novel The Memory Police is reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and 1984 by George Orwell, in the ways that it describes the burning of items, the government’s hand in surveillance, and the everyday lives of citizens. There are aspects, as well, of the “Disappearance of Elaine Coleman” by Steven Millhauser, the […]
Posted in Disappearance on Feb 11th, 2020
Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police has a plot that makes one wonder why they are trying to make everyone forget all of the information they’ve retained over their lifetime. One’s mind begins to wonder why the Memory Police would be doing this to the people who live on this island. Some may think that by having […]
Posted in Autonomy, Disappearance on Feb 10th, 2020
The worst thing that happens in The Memory Police isn’t the objects themselves disappearing; it’s the censorship and loss of freedom that comes with it. In the novel, Yoko Ogawa blends the horrors of reality with the fantastic. According to an article in the New York Times, Ogawa was fascinated with the Diary of Anne […]
Posted in Disappearance on Jan 22nd, 2020
“The Room in the Attic” gives us a great story about a boy chasing a dream he didn’t know he had. It all begins to make sense when we take his two friends, Ray and Dennis, who talk about their girlfriends at every chance they get. He sees other girls on the beach that he […]
Posted in Disappearance on Jan 20th, 2020
In Steven Millhauser’s “The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman,” Elaine is a quiet woman who is dependable about paying her rent and never misses work. She is quiet and likes to stay to herself, according to the landlady, Mrs. Walters. Elaine has disappeared, leaving all of her belongings behind, including the key to her apartment, creating a […]
Posted in Animals, Disappearance on Jan 20th, 2020
Though one short story deals more directly with disappearance, both stories involve the idea. “The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman” deals with disappearance throughout the entire story, while “Cat ‘N’ Mouse” only brings it up at the end. In “Cat ‘N’ Mouse,” we get to see both the cat and the mouse vanish from not wanting […]
Posted in Disappearance on Jan 19th, 2020
The life and fate of Elaine Coleman are stated in the story’s first paragraph: “Gradually the posters became rain-wrinkled and streaked with grime, the blurred photos seemed to be fading away, and then one day they were gone, leaving behind a faint uneasiness that itself dissolved slowly in the smoke-scented autumn air (Millhauser, 21).” […]
Posted in Disappearance on Jan 17th, 2020
As someone who has always been extremely introverted, I feel like this story is much more disturbing for me than it would be to a more outgoing reader. For me, the truly terrifying part of this story is not the “how” of Elaine’s disappearance; rather, it is the fact that the disappearance means so little to […]