Bastard Out Of Carolina
“Pay Attention to Detail”
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One must consider a little history on Dorothy Allison in order to see
how the directions that she takes the novel add up. When she was 24,
Allison lived in a lesbian-feminist collective. The women there gave
her the confidence she needed and the ability to see the value in her
own writing (Amazon.com). During this time, she also found someone
who seemed normal, yet she had experienced the same “incest” (Megan
74). This discovery removed some of her separation that she believed
her abuse created between her and the world (Amazon 74). Allison
actually was born a “bastard” (Amazon 78), and her life was further
complicated through dealing with her “brutal” step-father (Amazon
76). When she began writing, her goal as a writer, especially in
Bastard Out of Carolina centers on having “compassion” and no “rage”
(Megan 75). Allison hoped to further her goal in this book by making
Bone appear to be able to survive through making others take ownership
in the wrongs that have been dealt to her (Megan 73). Through Bone,
Allison could comprehend how her childhood could have been better, so
she would not raise her child in the same manner (Megan 75). In
writing Bastard, she also learned how to turn a poem into a novel, a
valuable skill for one who usually begins writing poetry (Megan 72).
Which creates themes present in the novel and in order to truly get an
appreciation of Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison, one must
take a close look at the main concepts: Abuse, Fire, Legitimacy,
Social Class, Hands, and Identity; to see how they all play a role in
the overall tone and personification of the book.
One of the main concepts in Ba...
... middle of paper ...
...p to the man who tries to destroy
her.
In conclusion, we saw how in writing Bastard, she also learned how to
turn a poem into a novel, which created themes present in the novel
and in order to have truly gotten an appreciation of Bastard Out of
Carolina, by Dorothy Allison, one must have taken a close look at the
main concepts: Abuse, Fire, Legitimacy, Social Class, Hands, and
Identity; to see how they all played a role in the overall tone and
personification of the book.
Works Cited:
"Amazon.com Talks to Dorothy Allison."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/show-interview/a-d-llisonorothy/
1261-2240565-375045 (22 March 1998).
"An Evening to Remember:Dorothy Allison."
http://www.progway.org/dorothy.html (22 March 1998).
Megan, Carolyn E. "Moving Toward Truth: An Interview with Dorothy
Allison." The Kenyon Review Journals 16.4 (Fall 1994):71-83.
Taylor Greer has lived in Kentucky all her life. Yet, the life available to her in Kentucky is not what she always dreamed of: "none of these sights had so far inspired me to get hogtied to a future as a tobacco farmer's wife" (3). Living with her mother, Taylor becomes more independent and striven to find a better life. Taylor's father disappeared before she could even remember what he looks like: "And for all I ever knew of my own daddy I can't say we weren't except for Mama swearing up and down that he was nobody I knew and was long gone besides" (2). Taylor's father's abandonment contributes to Taylor's dislike in men: "To hear you tell it, you'd think man was only put on this earth to keep urinals from going to waste" (112). She does not trust any men and Kingsolver displays this by not adding many male characters to the novel. Taylor feeling of being abandoned by her father scars her, even thought she does not express it clearly.
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Antwone’s foster mother that abuses and belittles Antwone while a lad along with his two other foster brothers.
She is brutally honest about her background and tragedies she endures, to show others that it is acceptable to have a voice in this world. In a raw moment on her 16th birthday, she speaks up to her abusive stepfather, after he spanks her in front of her friends, saying, “You can’t break me…and you’re never going to touch me again” (Allison 68). In this moment Allison realizes that she is the girl who “stood up to the monster” (68). At the same time, she realizes that she is capable of reclaiming herself and her life from the grasps of this monster that is her stepfather (Allison 69). At one point, she lets the tragedies in her life take over and reinvent who she is, making her nothing more than a victim that society has assigned a stereotype to, she writes, “I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh beneath it, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation” (Allison 70-71). Ultimately, Dorothy Allison defines herself and her voice through the progression of her
Thus, the fusion of the mundane and the magical perpetuate the narrative in a literary framework, which straddles this “borderland” of magic and mythic narrative. Furthermore, Davies’ cultivation of sainthood as a central theme of the novel is essentially a challenge to the proscribed social norms regarding femininity as masculinity, within rural Canadian society. The process of sainthood, in regards to Mrs. Dempster, adheres to this mythic trajectory of a fall from grace, or a “descent into the underworld”, or “hysteria”, resulting in an ultimate rise to sainthood. Finally, the dullness of life and the societal ideals of the male and female roles are challenged in the transformation of Mrs. Dempster in her respective process of sainthood. Abnormal behavior is looked down upon in rural Ontario; however, this process of “sainthood”, as a theme in the book, seems to assume that and individual rejection of social norms is a fundamental tenant of this transformation. Like Mrs. Dempster, Ramsay experiences a similar transformative trajectory, and the magic of this process is not necessarily magic in the traditional sense of the word, but related to a deeper sense of becoming. The magic manifests itself as a creation, and transformation, seeping out from
In his narrative, Justin Burnell recounts his memories of his biological father changing into to a woman. There are many ways the people in this story reacts but as a whole, in his recounts, they are almost the same. The heavy atmosphere in this story tells you how this story is going to go. The author does not give the year this takes place but just the location, in Knoxville, gives the reader insight on the hate that would be prominent.
Most stories depict a world full of misconception and over scrutinized facts which deal with an indirect narration of the past. The story is drawn out and over dramatized to the point of disbelief. Bastard out of Carolina is just that. On the contrary, this book is nothing but realistic. Comparing world sufficiency established by Dorothy Allison’s idea of the fifties to that of today’s standards, one would see it as if that world is one out of a fairytale; not so much a fairytale, but as more of a nightmare-tale. To the readers’ surprise, this fictional story is based off personal experience from that of the author. In conclusion, what is said in this novel could be directly compared to life as it was during the nineteen fifties in South Carolina. In particular, white folk of the time period are what is being analyzed and compared. Allison was born into a macrocosm of poverty and sexual abuse. To her, this was the normality of existence at a young age. Her life parallels Bone’s existence in the book and is an ideal structure to base assumption of the fifties off of. What was sufficient ‘then’ is highly different from that of expectations and sufficiency from a present day perspective. Sufficiency lies on a linear social line of expectation. The norms and ideologies of society lie along this line likewise. Defining what exactly sufficiency means in this context: sufficiency is the normality or the accepting of a certain level of knowledge, income, and interactive structure into a society. Essentially it is what is considered ‘enough’ in a given tense. In the fifties for example, role expectations in a family are extremely different from that of today’s expectations. The undertaking of a role today is more freely accepted than what ...
Atlantic journalist Nicholas Carr confesses that he feels something has been “tinkering with his brain.” The internet, he fears, may be messing with our minds. We have lost the ability to focus on a simple task, and memory retention is steadily declining. He is worried about the effect the internet has on the human brain, and where it may take us in the future. In response to this article, Jamais Cascio, also a journalist for the Atlantic, provides his stance on the issue. He argues that this different way of thinking is an adaptation derived from our environment. Ultimately, he thinks that this staccato way of thinking is simply a natural evolution, one that will help to advance the human race.
Vernon Corea was one of the world's greatest broadcasters - he was born on the island of Ceylon. The 'Hindu' newspapers placed him among the 'greats' in the world of broadcasting.
Andrew Johnson, the 17th president, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 29th, 1808. At the young age of three years old, Andrew’s father. Jacob Johnson passed away while drowning in an attempt to save the life of Editor Henderson from the Raleigh Gazette in 1812. Andrew’s mother, Mary Johnson, worked hard as a seamstress and washerwoman in order to support Andrew and his three brothers, and her; but she was unable to afford to send them to school. From the age of 14 until 16 he worked as an apprentice to a tailor but talked to his mother and stepfather about moving and starting a new life. He then opened a tailor shop in Greenville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle on May 17, 1827 and participated in debates at the local academy.
Sandy Wilson, the author of Daddy’s Apprentice: incest, corruption, and betrayal: a survivor’s story, was the victim of not only sexual abuse but physical and emotional abuse as well, in addition to being a product of incest. Sandy Wilson’s story began when she was about six years old when her birth father returns home from incarceration, and spans into her late teens. Her father returning home from prison was her first time meeting him, as she was wondered what he looked like after hearing that he would be released (Wilson, 2000, p. 8). Not only was her relationship with her father non-existent, her relationship with her birth mother was as well since she was for most of her young life, cared for by her grandmother and grandfather. When she was told that her birth mother coming to visit she says, “…I wish my mother wouldn’t visit. I never know what to call her so I don’t all her anything. Not her name, Kristen. Not mother. Not anything (Wilson, 2000, p. 4).” This quote essentially demonstrated the relationship between Sandy and her mother as one that is nonexistent even though Sandy recognizes Kristen as her birth mother.
Claude McKay is the author of the poem “America”. It was written on 1921when McKay lived in a neighborhood in Manhattan. At that time, New York was a center of black American artistic development known as “Harlem Renaissance.” (Meyer 865). McKay thrush this poem wants to demonstrate how he thinks about America. For everyone, America is a wonderful place where several people come to get their dreams, but McKay sees America as a cruel system where the Afro-American’s dreams are destroyed. In the poem “America”, written by Claude McKay, the reader can appreciate social characteristic such as inequality and racism during the first half of the Century XX in United States.
The story begins when she and her husband have just moved into a colonial mansion to relieve her chronic nervousness. An ailment her husband has conveniently diagnosed. The husband is a physician and in the beginning of her writing she has nothing but good things to say about him, which is very obedient of her. She speaks of her husband as if he is a father figure and nothing like an equal, which is so important in a relationship. She writes, "He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction." It is in this manner that she first delicately speaks of his total control over her without meaning to and how she has no choices whatsoever. This control is perhaps so imbedded in our main character that it is even seen in her secret writing; "John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition...so I will let it alone and talk about the house." Her husband suggests enormous amounts of bed rest and no human interaction at all. He chooses a "prison-like" room for them to reside in that he anticipates will calm our main character even more into a comma like life but instead awakens her and slowly but surely opens her eyes to a woman tearing the walls down to freedom.
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Architecture is seen to be a reflection of society for as structures are designed to not only answer functional, but also the social problems of the day. Whist being both a shelter and a representation of the people that occupy it - a home is seen to be one of the most important spaces within one’s life and the way that it has evolved just like our culture is rather more interesting than one would expect. Evans describes this in his article ‘Figures, Doors and Passages’ for that “If anything is described by an Architectural Plan, it is the nature of human relationships” (Evans, 1978, pg73). The planning of domestic spaces in 16th century Italian Villas were designed in a matrix of connected spaces which answered to the social mannerism of the day and this can been seen though the planning of spaces in response to closeness, classes and accidental social encounters with the occupants. This can then be seen to develop over the centuries to the now more conversant corridor model plan also answering to its current society within the context of privacy, distance, connectivity and segregation. How this came about in the 19th century British homes is much more than just trends and style, but a closer insight into the relationship between spatial organisation and social formations.