Introduction
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 probably always will. It is imperative to highlight and honor these differences instead of dismissing other perspectives. The way one may choose to go through life may be completely insane to someone else. The definition of 'living life" should be undoubtedly decided by an individual. I am very intrigued by this book and I hope that it will provide more insight into the women's perspective of living life. The women in my life appear to have everything on track, but I know they experience their own struggles. I am interested to see if the women in these stories write about similar struggles.
This post highlights the lens in which Rose focuses throughout the chapter to create a foundation to bring in the stories of other women. This is very important when focusing on how other cultures reveal how women perceive their circumstances and are perceived by others.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a great set of questions to put in an introduction. Women do have far different experiences than men and asking these questions made me try to think about things from a different perspective. I also feel like her saying that she wanted a biography or autobiography to answer these questions was important and beneficial for the audience to really understand her views and goals when it comes to women's writing.
ReplyDeleteI think sometimes people are very stubborn to learning about others and the lives they had growing up. I think this chapter was very helpful for women to understand how different everyone is and some people will have more struggles than others. Learning about others lives is vital to ours because it helps us to grow and understand things outside of our bubble
ReplyDelete