ENCW 202 Spring 2020
Posted in Animals, Desire, Transformations on Apr 12th, 2020
It seems important to understand whether or not it is worth it to sacrifice yourself for someone else. Samantha Hunt’s “Beast” follows the fantasies and guilt the narrator experiences as a result of partaking in an animalistic, one-night affair with a man she met at a bar. It is after this affair happened that the […]
Posted in Fantastic, Reality, Transformations on Apr 11th, 2020
Posted in Fantastic, fear, Mystery, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Social Fears, Transformations, Utopia on Mar 21st, 2020
How many years does it take for something to finally be viewed as fantastic? Five? Twenty? One hundred? I found myself pondering this as I read One Hundred Years of Solitude. As the years go by, we see bits and pieces of the modern world beginning to make their way into the isolated Macondo—the railroad, […]
Posted in Animals, Desire, Desperation, Transformations on Mar 5th, 2020
The fantastic in “Salt Slow” is not the many sea creatures that appear dead on the surface of the water; it is the size of the sea creatures. There is not one specific element of the fantastic in this story; a few others are the “baby” born, the webbed fingers that grow as the creatures […]
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 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 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 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 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 Obsession, Transformations on Jan 28th, 2020
I had the pleasure of reading Han Kang’s The Vegetarian last year, and looking back, I would say it does a much better job of depicting the fantastic than “The Fruit of My Woman” does. Unlike “The Fruit of My Woman,” there is no supernatural change in The Vegetarian. The main character, Yeong-hye, decides one […]
Posted in Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
The stories “Beast” and “Fatso” have many similarities. These stories can be related because both present characters whose physical appearance changes at night; however, there is also the shared theme of an internal confusion or unhappiness within the protagonists. At the beginning of “Fatso,” the speaker is explaining how his girlfriend seeks self-validation: I’m a whore, they […]
Posted in Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
Salt Slow: “Mantis” by Julia Armfield By: Olympia LeHota “Mantis” is an interesting short story that keeps the reader wondering what was to come of the flaky, otherwise ugly young teenager. Though the title gives us a clue to what we should expect at the end of the story, I couldn’t help but think to […]
Posted in Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
The focus on transformation is apparent in both of the following stories: “Fatso” and “The Metamorphosis.” Both stories focus on a physical transformation, not the meaning behind it. Transformation is physical, emotional, and mental, though the transformation does not have to have all three characteristics. In “The Metamorphosis” Franz Kafka presents the transformation of a man — Gregor — […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
The surprise in the stories “Fatso,” “Beast,” and “Mantis” is that no one notices or appears to be shocked in the stories about the changes that take place. In “Mantis,” it appears that the girl is going through puberty along with her other classmates. They compare their ugliness and flaws with each other. When faced with […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
The stories “The Metamorphosis,” “Fatso,” “Beast,” and “Mantis” all have the shared element of transformation. In each story the main character experiences or witnesses a drastic physical change. Now, of course, this isn’t possible in real life, which makes it incredibly easy to brush off a story as something that doesn’t feel real or carry […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 16th, 2020
Samantha Hunt’s piece “Beast” is written on the ‘fantastic’ of a transformation of the physical metamorphosis from human to animal during the night. The result of the emotional and mental conflict that the character deals with after cheating on her partner. Hunt’s work showcases the parallelism of leading a double life, from the sexual cravings […]
Posted in Transformations on Jan 15th, 2020
From the very beginning of “Mantis,” a sort of transformation of the protagonist is presented. It simply isn’t the type of transformative experience expected from the fantastic in fiction. The protagonist’s mother and her attempts to cover up the protagonist’s “problem skin” are the first bit of their relationship to be seen at all. There […]
Posted in Transformations on Jan 15th, 2020
With Samantha Hunt’s “Beast” being started off with the main character reading the newspaper at night, which shows that she is trying to stay up late for some reason, as most people read the newspaper in the morning before they leave for work, while they are eating their breakfast. While she is lying in bed […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 15th, 2020
While the horror aspect of the short stories “Mantis,” “Beast,” and “The Metamorphosis” entice the audience to continue reading, it is merely a distraction from the human experience and reactions of the characters. In Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor is transformed into a giant beetle, a monster in the eyes of his family. But it is […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 15th, 2020
“Mantis,” a short story in Julia Armfield’s collection Salt Slow, was definitely a suspenseful read. The entire time you’re curious as to what the fate of our narrator will be. You’re aren’t expecting her to actually transform, which is one of the elements of the fantastic in fiction, and certainly not into a mantis. It never flat […]
Posted in Animals, Transformations on Jan 14th, 2020
While a woman may turn into a deer in Samantha Hunt’s short story “Beast,” that is not what the story is about. Rather, it is about a woman and her internal struggles with her domestic life. In the early pages of the story, we learn that the narrator and her husband were high school sweethearts. […]