The Norton Book of Women's Lives: Reflections

  Word Count: 518 From The Diary of Anne Frank “Yet we shall have our jokes and tease each other, when these horrors have faded a bit in our minds. It won't do us any good, or help those outside, to go on being as gloomy as we are at the moment … And if I want to laugh about something, should I stop myself quickly and feel ashamed that I am cheerful? Ought I then to cry the whole day long? No, that I can't do” (291). “Oh, if I could nestle my head against his shoulder and not feel so hopelessly alone and deserted” (297). “Then I fall asleep with a stupid feeling of wishing to be different from what I am or from what I want to be; perhaps to behave differently from the way I want to behave, or do behave” (292). This excerpt of the Diary of Anne Frank felt both sobering and normal. Anne writes about something that no one would ever have to go through in such a nonchalant way. It felt very human because of the range of emotions she felt during this. She felt anger, loneliness, f...

  Word Count: 580 From Times and Places by Emily Hahn “All in all, if I'd been asked how I was faring I would have said I’d been getting on fine. I had no desire to change the way I was living. Except for the doctor, foreign outsiders didn’t seem to guess about me; they must have thought I looked sallow, and certainly they would have put me down as absentminded but nobody guessed. The Chinese, of course, were different, because they’d seen it all before” (352-353).  “I can stop whenever I want to. You don’t know me well, but I assure you I can stop any time” (354). Emily Hahn’s time in China was really interesting to read because it showed the psychology behind doing drugs like opium and its consequences. Emily had said she always wanted to be an opium addict which was strange to me. This sentiment alone allows readers to see into the culture she grew up in. While opium was still illegal, since she believed this it was evident that opium was seen as a good thing and idealize...

  Word Count: 339 From Blackberry Winter by Margaret Mead Margaret Mead’s work is very different from the other women writers we have studied. Mainly because most of the women we have studied focused on their own experience within their own culture but Mead discusses her experience within another culture and how she responds to it within the context of her own culture.  She discusses what being an anthropologist means and what she was taught when she went to school but also the things she changed when teaching. She says, “it is a wasteful system, a system I have no time for. I try to work against it by giving students a chance to work over my own field preparations and notes…” (560). She is referring to the system of teaching anthropology in schools. She recognizes the faults within the system and boldly tries to make it better and change the system. She mentions the importance of respecting other cultures especially when immersed in it. She says, “To do it well, one has to sw...

  Word Count: 522 From Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Semyonova Ginzburg Eugenia’s story is set in the time right before the Stalin Show Trials and we can see the influence of these prominent ideas in the story. The Stalin Show Trials consisted of Stalin accusing former prominent party leaders in Russia of treason and many of those leaders actually helped him do it. At the time, these trials were not seen as a show or false in any way and they were not made because the point was to get rid of other potential leaders so Stalin was the only one who could lead. In fact it even happens in the prison with the prison governor being thrown into his own prison. Eugenia comments on this idea before the public knows this saying, “But if all these people have betrayed one man, isn't it easier to suppose that he has betrayed them” (309). Eugenia is a proud communist however, she seems to be very perceptive since she recognizes this.  We also see the influence of community in th...

  Word Count: 581 From The War by Marguerite Duras “He was taking the liberty of exercising the right to forgive and absolve there and then, right away, without any knowledge of the hatred that filled everyone, a hatred terrible yet pleasant, consoling, like a belief in God” (237). “My identity has gone. I'm just she who is afraid when she wakes. She who wills in his stead, for him. I exist in that will, that desire, and even when Robert L. is at death's door it's inexpressibly strong because he is still alive … But now there is hope and pain is implanted in hope. Sometimes I'm amazed I don't die; a cold blade plunged deep into the living flesh, night and day, and you survive” (244). Marguerite Duras was a very strong woman who seemed to be very in tune with herself and her emotions. However, her story describes both the emotional, and physical toll of war. She is constantly worried about Robert L, first about if he was alive and then about if he would survive and...

  Word Count: 577  From When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip “She clung to me for security just as I clung to her for companionship – although I could never make her safe any more than she could substitute for my own lost brothers and sisters.” (368). “Nobody would be interested in the truth. The same ‘facts’ were there for everyone to see and truth, in this war, was whatever you wanted to make it. And, as if all this wasn't bad enough, I had brought it on by disobeying my father. I was a disgrace and liability to everyone. I didn't deserve to live” (375). Le Ly was a very active part of this war, as much as a common woman could be. She was a lookout and in fact saved many Viet Cong lives, but she and her village suffered a lot from this war. It seems the Viet Cong appreciated her and her village's help and sacrifices but did not do much to help them through the suffering they were going through. Especially after she is arrested the first time and the quest...

  Word Count: 445 From Gifts of Passage by Santha Rama Rau “I don't suppose he was in love with her – I don't suppose he thought in such terms – but she was undeniably his most cherished possession. She was a beautiful ornament, and even if she wasn't a particularly talented or economical housekeeper, still, he didn't seem to mind although he made quite a point of childing or disparaging her in public” (678).  “None of the family took this announcement seriously. My grandmother didn't believe the part about the job at all, but she was, on the whole, rather pleased that Radha could afford to be so offhand about her marriage. Too great an eagerness for a husband was scarcely becoming in a girl, and, besides, having a marriageable daughter sought after rather than seeking put the family in a strong position” (681). In the second story, Santha and Gita are obsessed with ghosts and she discusses the original ghost story she heard from her family. I asked myself why she...

  Word Count: 445 From The Price of my Soul by Bernadette Devlin  “A year or two later, from the same feeling of defiance, I wore a tricolor pin oin my coat precisely because the Northern Ireland Falgs and Emblems Act forbade it. Only once did a policieman ask me to remove it. ‘You remove it,’ I said, but as his hand came out to take the badge, I added: ‘If you touch me without a warrant, Ill have you in court for assault!’ He just laughed and said, ‘Go on there, you troublemaker!’ I trotted on, feeling very proud I had won, But once I discovered I could get away with it, I lost interest in the badge” (189). Bernadette Devlin was a very strong willed and defiant woman. However, before she attended her school, she was not this way. She said that she was timid and almost intimidated by the people in the school. But even as a child she felt the need to be defiant. She says, “A year or two later, from the same feeling of defiance, I wore a tricolor pin oin my coat precisely becaus...