ENCW 202 Spring 2020
Posted in coronavirus, dystopia, fear, Isolation, Loneliness on Mar 19th, 2020
Throughout this course we have explored the realm of fantastic in fiction and the amount of varieties within the category. If we were to have read a story about a pandemic that caused mass hysteria and isolation just a couple months ago, before the pandemic became a force to be reckoned with, we would have […]
Posted in Captivity, Desperation, dystopia, Fantastic, Isolation, Loneliness, Longing for Answers, Mystery, Obsession on Mar 19th, 2020
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” We’ve all heard of cabin fever. Well, welcome to self-quarantine during the Coronavirus, with social distancing and young folks who are being advised to stay far away from the Boomers. So far my room is clean; we created an at-home office for me in the old guest room; […]
Posted in coronavirus, Death, Desperation, dystopia, Loneliness on Mar 18th, 2020
Receiving emails all stating the same thing, hearing the news all reciting the same scripts, it brings to mind a few familiarities. Naturally, the first thing that came to my mind was the movie Contagion released in 2011. The idea of a pandemic sweeping the planet and taking out certain people. But it also reminds me […]
Posted in coronavirus, Death, Desperation, Fragility, Loneliness, Longing for Answers on Mar 16th, 2020
This pandemic is undoubtedly fantastic. It makes me think of The Memory Police. In comparison, the current situation with the coronavirus (COVID-19) is temporary (hopefully), whereas in the novel, they were permanent, and we retain our memories of the things we have lost. Our freedom has been limited. We must practice social distancing and for […]
Posted in Death, Fragility, Loneliness on Mar 2nd, 2020
Three of Julia Armfield’s stories in a row have been about showcasing how fragile relationships can be: “Granite,” in which Maggie falls too hard for a man and he turns to stone; “Smack,” in which Nicola hides out in her husband’s beach house and contemplates their marriage; and “Cassandra After,” in which the narrator reminisces about her relationship with […]
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 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 Loneliness on Feb 6th, 2020
Generally, when it comes to the fantastic in fiction, the outlier is the main character; they possess some kind of unique ability that sets them apart from the rest, even if everyone else around them is fantastical as well. I was fully expecting to be the narrator to be the exceptional one in this story, […]
Posted in Loneliness, Transformations on Feb 6th, 2020
There is a fragility through “Granite,” specifically in the main character, that permeates the whole story. As it moves on, the statement that men are too fragile to love creates an irony as we learn more about the main character. She has been so alone far longer than any of her friends. Her past boyfriends […]
Posted in Desperation, Loneliness, Longing for Answers, Obsession on Feb 3rd, 2020
Salt Slow, in its entirety, can be summed up as the body betraying the narrator. First the transformation in “Mantis,” then people’s Sleeps leaving their bodies in “The Great Awake,” and finally, in “The Collectibles,” a woman collects men’s body parts to supposedly build a better boy. There are concepts in this story that we […]
Posted in Loneliness on Jan 31st, 2020
Julia Armfield’s “The Collectibles” is an obvious homage to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and having just finished reading Frankenstein for a separate class, I was able to notice numerous similarities between the two texts apart from the main parallel of creation. On the first day of the class, we were asked to come up with a […]
Posted in Desire, Loneliness on Jan 30th, 2020
The aspect of “Mothers” that interested me the most was how this woman ended up taking care of a child. It begins with the narrator’s abusive girlfriend presenting her with a baby. Throughout reading this, I almost suspected a couple of times that the child was imagined in order for the narrator to find her way […]
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 […]
Posted in Desire, Loneliness on Jan 29th, 2020
At first, “Mothers” was a mildly puzzling read. Who was Bad, who was our narrator, and, most importantly, who in the world is named Bad of all things? The name was a bit of a hint, which I only realized upon reaching the end. Our narrator, a woman living alone since her separation with Bad, is given […]
Posted in Desperation, Loneliness, Longing for Answers on Jan 27th, 2020
In “Inventory,” we encounter a woman reminiscing over her past sexual experiences and telling us about the outbreak of a virus. By the end of the story, we learn that she has been isolated on an island the entire time waiting for death. Now, in movies and even books, we’ve witnessed the tale of “the […]
Posted in Loneliness on Jan 27th, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado’s story “Inventory” easily could have been turned into a longer piece of apocalyptic fiction, telling the story of the narrator’s life as she tries to survive on her own. Instead, Machado chose to write this story as a list of the people with whom the narrator has had romantic or sexual relationships. […]