Women's Writing Worldwide

 Word Count: 230 Parker Greene A Daughter of Han / Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI " The father of my children was good for a while, and I thought he had learned his lesson. He promised never to sell the child again and I believed him. Then one day he sold her again and I could not get her back that time." (pg. 634) Ning Lao had suffered a lot throughout her lifetime, and this quote really shows just how much she had to endure. Ning Lao had many struggles in life, living in poverty struggling to find food, her husbands opioid addiction, and her husband selling their child twice before she finally left him. Ning had to live by begging for money while married, and after she spilt from him she just wanted to take care of her other child. Ning did her best to beg for food and just make ends meet, and all while being able to stay true to herself. While I think Ning knew she wasn't in the best situation/relationship with her husband at the time, she stayed around so that she would h...

 Word Count: 240 Parker Greene Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng " I heard the small window behind the prisoner's chair close with a loud bang. My tormentors waited a little while before opening the door to usher me out, perhaps to make sure the person outside had time to get out of sight." (pg. 111) Nien Cheng had a very rough time in prison since she was seen as such a high value criminal. She was falsely imprisoned for a crime that she did not commit, but the government at the time was not taking any chances. The crime that Nien Cheng was being falsely accused of and held in prison for was a huge deal, so during her time in prison she was treated very poorly along with many other prisoners; as my quote says above. They also seem to want to isolate the prisoners from each other as much as possible, so the guards could break their will much faster to make them confess to their crimes. Nien spoke of many hardships, but one that stands out is when she had her hands ti...

 Word Count: 403 Parker Greene From a life of her own/ Emilie Carles "But shortly afterward, things began to go wrong; my father wanted me to reconsider my choice: he explained that on thinking it over, he did not approve of the marriage. It bothered him that Jean Carles was a workingman with no property under the sun. In his eyes it was unthinkable for me to marry a man who didn't own anything, and he asked me to think it over too" (pg. 89). The beginning of this writing really stood out to me, as this is something I have been through before. Asking the father for a woman's hand in marriage is typically seen as a traditional custom. It is seen as a requirement in some households. In modern times, this custom has seemingly become less common. This may be because in the past, women's rights were not considered important. The man was meant to ask the father to marry his daughter; if he said no, what was there to do? Being told that you cannot marry the woman you lov...

Word Count: 278 Parker Greene Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain "One day I remembered how Edward had told me that Geoffrey's last letter, written two days before he was killed at Monchy-le-Preux, had ended with the words: 'Till we meet again, Here or in the Hereafter.' Had they met now in the hereafter, I wondered?" (pg. 86) Testament of Youth is meant to be a first hand look at what it was like being a war nurse during WWI. Vera Brittain gave her perspective on the difficult time of being a war nurse, having to hear stories and see firsthand just how brutal war is. Vera made some friends while she was treating patients and got to know these people, before they could be redeployed. Brittain obviously went through some very tough times, along with countless others. I enjoyed being able to read her words first hand about the sad stories of fallen soldiers. I think was an interesting story to read; I feel as though I am left with many unanswered questions. The conten...

 Word Count: 276 Parker Greene The italics are mine/ Nina Berbervoa "The realization of my first strong desire to choose, to decide, to find, to move myself consciously in a chosen direction gave me for my whole life, as I now see it, a feeling of victory not over someone else but over myself, not bestowed from on high but personally acquired" (pg. 69). This quote is extremely powerful in this reading. The author describes a specific feeling and ultimate realization that she had. One of the most difficult things in life is to admit something to yourself. Oftentimes, there are answers right in front of us and yet we turn a blind eye. Clearly, the author has experienced something along these lines. It must have taken a lot of strength for her to decide on her path and then put effort in to take that path. This is admirable to watch anyone do. I have found that life is full of people to socialize with, choices to make, and paths to follow. I have learned first hand that life is ...

 Word Count: 245 Parker Greene  The prime of life / Simone de Beauvoir "It was a long time before we realized that our emotional detachment from, and indifference to, our respective childhoods was to be explained by what we had experienced as child" (pg. 63) The idea of emotional detachment was an unexpected component of this reading. It was an extremely personal and vulnerable statement. Many people tend to assume that all women deal with the same issues, and all men deal with the same issues. Men and women are thought to approach and handle things differently. While this may be true on a chemical level, the similarities between men and women cannot be ignored. The quote can contradict that thinking because any person may be subject to childhood traumas. While all traumas are different, the children who experience any type of trauma are bound to hold onto it for years. The author refers to "our respective childhoods" to further show readers that all humans experien...

Word Count:  249 Parker Greene "so my connections to the outside world became through him" (36:10) This quote really speaks for itself but I love the volume that this speaks, using just a simple statement while being able to be so thought provoking for women of this time. Simone de Beauvoir was really influential in her writing and advocating for women to start thinking more about changing gender norms. Beauvoir's influence on women during that time and years later has helped change how women think for themselves. Women reading this book for the first time and seeing this quote, must have brought forward many thought provoked women wanting to change the way things are. Most women were stay at home mothers during the time that Beauvoir's work came about, and after women started to read The Other Sex they started to want to become more educated which led to more women going to college to pursue studies in women.  This quote is relatable to everyone that had to live thro...

 Word Count: 250 Parker Greene I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou "The girls had tired of mocking Momma and turned to other means of agitation. One crossed her eyes, stuck her thumbs in both sides of her mouth and said, "Look here, Annie." Grandmother hummed on and the apron strings trembled. I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper in their faces, to throw lye on them, to scream they were dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but I knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles." (pg. 44) The way that Maya Angelou was able to describe her life experiences really gives the reader a strong visual picture of what was happening at that time. Maya recounts her perspective in a way that was able to paint a strong visual picture in the readers head of her Momma being mocked and how she wanted to retaliate towards the white girls. During this time black people were mistreated by certain white people called "powh...

Word  Count: 268 Parker Greene From The Norton Book of Women’s Lives, Introduction, by Phyllis Rose "What did it mean to live life to the full? How fully could a woman live? These were the questions I wanted biography and autobiography to answer" (p 12). This is an excellent question to be placed in the introduction of this book. The idea of living life to the full may be different for everyone. The stories that follow the introduction were written by many different women. All of these women have a different name, a different home life, and a different story. Their differences allowed them to create amazing stories. It is essential for humans to learn about each other and their differences. One of the most significant differences is culture. I believe that this will be evident throughout these readings. The second part of the quote applies specifically to this piece of work because all the stories were written by women. Men and women experience life in different ways; they p...