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Initially, I thought “In Bed” was just kind of boring and an informative piece. Once I finished reading it, well actually once I got to the tail end of it I realized what Joan Didion did. She took a nonliving thing, and described it as a very alive creature, she describes the migraine as a “friend” to be exact. I feel like the beginning is more informative and packed with non-fictitious information which is only a set up for the second half of the story where she throws in all these cool descriptions, analogies, and imagery. I’m sure there are more literary elements I probably missed but you get what I am saying. The second half makes up for the slow beginning. I ended up enjoying this story I like what she did with taking something harmful and negative then describing the relationship she developed with it over time in a peaceful and serendipitous manner.
ReplyDeleteI read “El Toro Rojo” two times and I know there is all kinds of subliminal messages and literary elements I’m just not seeing them or getting the message. For me, this was a difficult read. Maybe I don’t know enough about bull fighting or the Spanish culture to fully comprehend the references, but I know there is more to this one than just the words and scenes described I just can’t pinpoint what it is.
“The Witching Hour” was interesting. I got the sense that the mother of the little girl who is telling the story has either passed away or just no longer around for whatever reason. In the second to last paragraph: “I loved playing with her long and lovely thick hair…”, this sentence (at least for me) immediately struck the thought that her mother is no longer with her. I think maybe the aswang story is the girls favorite memory of/with her mother which is why she gets so sad when Mrs. Johnson tells her she cannot draw it and then destroys it. I found it ironic how at the end, the little girl uses Mrs. Johnson’s markers to draw what Mrs. Johnson did not want her drawing.
-Alfredo Montemayor
To me, Joan Didion’s “In bed” struck me more as an infomercial in which someone suffering from migraines explains what a migraine is and then tries to sell us some medicine in which they claim works. The fact that she names these medicine by names kind of prompts me to want to buy some if I were to be suffering from a migraine. The title also kind of threw me off, it isn’t till the very end in which she says that she has to like in bed and just tell herself that she’s not having a migraine and kind of just ignores the pain until it subsides or she falls asleep. The ending also struck me as a little curious as well when she says: “I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing. I count my blessings.” What does the flower in a glass have to do with anything?
ReplyDeleteOk, first of all, Dinty W. Moore is a white man that was born in Pennsylvania, knowing this kind of puts me off, like how does he even know what he’s talking about? If “El Toro Rojo” was a Spanish man that grew up watching bull fighting all his life then I would give the story more credit because then he witnessed it in person instead of Dinty whom probably watched it on T.V. The last sentences make absolutely no sense, what purpose would Dinty have to say “you count to one”?
I really like Aimee Nexhukumatathil’s “The witching hour” and the fact that she is part Indian and incorporates native folklore into her stories. I really like how she sets up the essay with the first paragraph being a little information on the aswang and the origins of it. Then she goes on to describe what happens next ending with a cute and clever middle finger to Mrs. Johnson which made me smile when I read that. I also started thinking why she would choose an aswang as an endangered animal when she clearly states she knows it’s not real and is only a myth. But I realized she wasn’t drawing an aswang, she was drawing the calm time she would seldom spend with her mother when her mom starts to talk about the aswang. –Lowen Sauceda
Out of the 3 stories assigned to us, I felt “In Bed,” was the most personal piece of writing. Didion lets the readers in on her life full of frequent migraines and even explains the science behind it. The descriptive language used to describe a migraine headache almost causes you to wince in pain. The readers are even informed that people with migraines are stereotyped with a “migraine personality.” It is almost as if Didion is complaining to the readers of the struggles she has to go through. In the end, however, it is shown that she comes to peace with it, and at one point she even personifies it as a “friend.” Didion eventually accepts it as part of herself.
ReplyDelete“El Toro Rojo,” is definitely the type of reading that makes you feel as if you are there in the story. The details and imagery in the writing are what make it seem real. For example, when Tomas Lopez, “guides the bull, as if el toro rojo were the most beautiful woman at the dance.” (Starkey 226). The reader can picture the grace of the bullfighter, yet the authority he has in the ring. The killing of the bull is brutal, but brings out Moore’s personal side. It seems he is awaiting the death of the bull while also bringing up the death of his father. Moore states, “In your own life, death has lingered,” meaning that though it may have occurred long ago, we still hold onto it to this point. Ironically, he brings all of us to the point where the death of the bull is actually taking place. I felt this writing was very good, but it could have been longer.
“The Witching Hour,” was somewhat odd to me. It wasn’t the fact that she loved to hear scary stories, because we all like to hear scary stories, but that she saw an interest in the aswang and wanted to draw it at such a young age (multiple times). It is clear this story was a legend from her culture, just like La Llorona is to our Mexican culture. Nezhukumatathil does a good job at detailing the aswang and her memories, as well as describing her drawings to the readers. It seemed unfair that the teacher tore up her hard work in front of her, but in the end her young self continued to draw the aswang while her teacher merely sighed, probably a sigh of disappointment and misunderstanding.
-Alyssa Ramos
In all three short stories time is an element that each writer deals with in a very shrewd way. I’m not talking about shrewdness in the negative sense of the word but as a writer should be as their own master of word placement.
ReplyDeleteIn Joan Didion’s essay, In Bed, she writes the line, “When I was 15, 16, even 25, I used to…”p221, this acts as a bases covered line in which the writer now has the freedom to pour out information freely about the logic she entertained prior to her revelation of the migraine becoming her “friend”. She doesn’t go into long drawn out paragraphs of each individual age and trauma, in which she could and it would possibly be interesting, but she keeps her words in line with describing her new point of view on migraines. I felt as though the flow of this story worked well as a generalization that narrowed in on a particular issue that the writer faced.
In El Toro Rojo, writer Dinty W. Moore uses the element of time in an intense way slowing down the action to moments within watching the bull fight. There is a poetic element with double meaning in the last paragraph when he writes, “In your own life, death has lingered. Your father, for one. All lives end badly.” p226 These sentences are so short and cause a reader to slow down. They increase the dramatic take on what is happening and act as a buffer between action. This piece did the opposite of generalize time because it reinforced emotions that the writer wants the reader to take time with.
The Witching Hour is my favorite piece because it is the traditional chronological order. I know from experience that chronological order writing has the danger of becoming a dry list as it has happened to me in some of the things I write, but when a writer does it well I enjoy the heck out of it. Aimee Nezhukumatathil does a great job of bringing action back into the mix before anything slows down. She recollects on her mother in the midst of this spooky story and even describes her mother’s hair just as the aswang had the same hair style going on. I wasn’t too keen on the title; I would have much rather preferred The Aswang.
Brenda Gomez
Okay so to start off, “In Bed” by Joan Didion, was a huge metaphor for how people all have their stuff, and there isn’t much we could do about. The line, “…at one point I learned to give myself two daily injections of histamine with a hypodermic needle, even though the needle so frightened me that I had to close my eyes when I did it…” brings a sense to humanity that at some point there are things that we all don’t want to do, but we we must. The tone starts off very strong to let you damn well know that there is pain in this story, in this woman, and I everyones life. There are things in life that are beyond our control, and the point is not to control them, but to understand them better. And in her case, the pain was too painful that she forced her self to understand it, and when she realized that there was nothing she could have done, she found peace in understanding.
ReplyDeleteIn Aimee Nezhukumatahil’s, “ The Witching Hour” was very creepy to read at first, and very familiar to other folk tales I would hear. But it’s weird because this story would bring comfort to the author. I suppose it has to have some type of connection to her mother. Whenever the folk was told or mentioned, the author thougth of her mother. This story was very special to both mother and daughter, that is why the author probably drew the Asawng. Maybe she feels that her mother is endangerd somehow because she may not have as much time to spend with her daughter, comes and goes. So maybe she feels connected to thr asawg, like she feels connected to her mother whenever she isn’t rushed. The importance here is not the Asawng at all, it is the mother. I believe the mama eagle is her mom and the two baby eagles are, one, the author and two a sacrficre.
In Dinty W. Moore’s, “ El Toror Rojo”, pretty much sums up death as a unpredictable as possible.
-Christopher Capello
I would like to begin with "The Witching Hour" which I found a bit more interesting (perhaps it was due to it's traditional structure). It goes about the "Witching Hour" being pleasant when it came to the story telling hour with her mother, but the unpleasant memory that marks the start of humiliation and guilt in the life of a child. That unpleasant hour, that "Witching Hour" (the title that fits perfectly) in which her teacher took something that meant so much to her. It could be the sense of fear of leaving something that meant so much behind, the fond memories of when her mother was present. Maybe she was growing up and her mom couldn't be there as much as she could to bring the "aswang" to life in stories anymore. For this reason, perhaps the aswang was becoming an endangered species just as the presence of her mother was becoming endangered. She wanted those stories, the awsang, to stay alive as long as it could. Sometimes a child's mentality is ripped away. By child mentality I mean that children are known to dream big and when the story ended with, "She came over to see what I was drawing, sighed, and hurried the rest of the class inside to get ready for Science," I took it for what life can really be. We grow up believing in certain things and stories perhaps mermaids and fairies but "Science" (education) comes in to knock all that down so that we believe in fact and theory and forget about the creative stuff. The system that forces rules structure and regulations trying to force strategy and in most cases education forgets about the creative mind.
ReplyDelete“In Bed” had a form of personification towards migraine. I could se how tha structure took an informative route but creatively as she brings migraine to life for what it is-the “uninvited friend”. She talks about how life could be worse but she can “eat gracefully and sleep well” and she counts her blessings. This migraine issue she speaks of to compare everyone’s problems to show them that in the midst of anxiety or disaster we cannot always control life just count the blessings. It was poetic in ways. In “El Torro Rojo,” I got a sense of death and tragedy and being grateful for when it lingers but your still alive. All three stories have had that feel: a childhood memory fading behind so that stories are only memories; the agony when the uninvited “happens” and lastly holding on when the “going gets tough.”
-Lisa Marie Serna
As I read the whole story of Joan Didion, “In Bed”, I noticed her expression of migraines. She elongates her sentences, with a billion details and a plethora of commas. Her sentences to me as I read are in forms of endless lists: a combination of different examples of what a migraine is. To me this story that she wrote is to get a message across, speaking in first person, really caught my attention. She used very descriptive words, and this skill really makes me (the readers) understand that it sucks. She sounded like a doctor at times.
ReplyDeleteThe second story, I’m not going to lie, was short and very powerful. Powerful in a sense where it made me believe I was part of it as well. Dinty W. Moore, this man wrote as if he was speaking right at us, the readers. His structure of using Spanish words in a written English story brings me joy. I’m a bit familiar with las corridas de toros, but in his story having the footnotes on standby really made understand more of what he was writing due to the fact that those chosen Spanish words had a lot more description. And this fascinated me because they all were finished being defined before the last paragraph and that is where Moore brings us into the story already knowing what we needed to do.
I found the last story, very strange and unusual, yet very common. I say common because it is to be structured with similar things like this paragraph with be dedicated to the teacher, what a aswang is, to how she mentions the after part of her twist in the story. Despite being in the 3rd grade, I don’t know exactly how old she is now, but every memory she shared from that specific moment captured my attention as if I was in her shoes as a child. The language she uses is mature for a 3rd grader. Even more so that it was targeted to what she knew could be true because of how her mom read to her. She does not use much of dialoged, but the little that she used was very helpful in making us understand that something important came after that little conversation, of how much importance this project was and how it made her feel.
-Maria J. Salinas
I liked the story In Bed by Joan Didion because she described what a person with a migraine is like. I can only imagine what it feels of all the headaches I've had in my life but I know I don't have this problem. She finds a way of thinking of the bright side of things and making the bad into a somewhat good thing. Pretending the migraine is like a friend because she is acquainted with it and so used to it. Such as when she said, "We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I." I thought it was funny but of course when you get used to something you learn to deal with it one way or another.
ReplyDeleteEl Toro Rojo by Dinty W. Moore is a bit challenging to understand with all the spanish words but I do get what is going on in the piece. The matador performing in slowing down the bull one after another entertaining the crowd. I felt as if I was there watching it as I read. This piece reminds me of the cute cartoon movie The Book Of Life so as I read this short story I was thinking of those cartoon matadors and the Mexican or Spaniard culture of bull fighting. It was sad for the first matador that got hit and had to be dragged out the fighting pit but shows the danger of this sport. I think I learned more of what goes on in the bull fighting ring than what I've witnessed on tv because I never actually seen the whole fight. I really don't know what is going on but all I see is stakes being stabbed at the bull but I really learned the names of the weapons they use and what they are named. Weapons such as the bandilleras with the metal tipped spikes that they thrust at the bull's neck and I never knew a descabello which is a small sword was used for the final kill to end the bull's life. Very interesting stuff about the sport.
I enjoyed reading the Witching Hour by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. I was a bit confused on what I read on the torso part but that does sound horrid. Does the witch even feel pain on morphing into the evil creature she is? I love the description cause it kind of gives me the chills like all this mutation sounds gross and gruesome but pretty awesome at the same time. Something you would see in movies so this paragraph fascinates me of the supernatural. I mean this lady is a killer beast who eats fetus for crying out loud. Not creepy at all like I wouldn't want to mess with that b-witch. The part in the beginning where it describes how you can rid of the witch (aswang), with salt, vinegar, lemon, etc, reminds me of the show Supernatural how they burn bones in the grave to rid of the evil spirits/ghosts.
I thought it was funny how the narrator drew the aswang witch and the teacher did not find it pleasing or appropriate and tore it in front of the peers embarrassing the narrator. It was a bit too cruel but sweet that a classmate got the narrator a new poster to draw on. It was nice to have talent and that she was able to draw and win proving to the teacher it does not bother her she had tore her work. It was like victory of the teacher when in the end of the story she drew aswangs doing many activities amusing her classmates and the teacher gave up and just kept on with teaching because she couldn't do much about it.
-Adelisa Fuentes
At the beginning of “In Bed” by Joan Didion, I feel as if she tries to deny these migraines by pretending they don’t happen. As she develops into an adult, she starts to make more sense on why she gets these migraine headaches. Didion mentions, “I fought migraines then, ignored the warnings it sent… with involuntary tears running down the right side of my face… emptied ice trays onto my bed and tried to freeze the pain in my right temple…curse my imagination.” Joan Didion speaks and describes how heavy the pain is and how she wished she could stop it. Later, she mentions that no one knew what or how exactly this was issue was inherited but that people can not escape heredity. I personally enjoyed the closing to this short story, as much as these migraines have brought upon issues throughout her whole life, she finally finds a solution, she lets the migraines take over within their control and she does nothing but lay down. “I count my blessings.” It could have been much worse.
ReplyDeleteInteresting but a bit hard to comprehend, El Toro Rojo by Dinty W. Moore reads more as if it might be poetry. (Hence: which is why it was hard to comprehend) “The bull was not expecting to die.” The creature was not expected to die but all the bull riders went in with the intentions of killing it. To human beings it becomes more of a tragedy when people die especially when bull riding, but what do they expect! It’s a dangerous thing (sport?) to do. Why would the tragedy of human death not be just as important as the murdering of animal killings? “In your own life, death has lingered.” Death does linger, but not all lives end badly.
As I read, I felt as Amiee Nezhukumatathil in “The Witching Hour” contradicts herself a bit. In one of her paragraphs she mentions “I think I nodded yes, I don’t remember.” Going back to our Mondays class discussion on how authors incorporate fiction into nonfiction stories. If she doesn’t remember, then how does she know that what really happened? It has readers start to question if what she is saying really did actually happen. “Deep down I didn’t really believe in the the aswang…”. If Nezhukumatathil didn’t really believe in it, then why was there so much effort put into drawing and showing off the aswang? Why not just gone with drawing a traditional animal instead of a imaginary piece of her imagination that she wasn’t really sure she could even trust. Confusing piece of art, I must say.
-Natasha Villarreal
The readings that were required for today were if I do say very interesting. The way each writer elaborated their stories all in different ways, each giving a great example of different formats and ways that a story can be written. Reading and meditating on the first reading (Joan Didion, In Bed) made me think of what it must be like to have a migraine. The pain that is felt, I know when I have a headache I feel like my world is ending, but the way this author was to describe her inner feelings about those unexpected moments when a migraine just arrived made it feel as if my headaches were a joke. This story made me see that something so simple can be taken to a whole new level. Writing has no specific title anything can become a story if you just put in the write words. El Toro Rojo by Dinty W. Moore I believe was a well written short story. It was as if I was sitting watching the bull fight myself, whispering toro, counting to one. The way a different language was used in this story made it very clear that with language you can make stories come to life. The reader is drawn in as in wanting to know what that word really means and why it was used in that way. My favorite out of all had to be The Whiching Hour by Aimee Nezhukumatahil, she started off the story with brief information about what a aswang was and continued her story as tying it all together. This way of writing I believe was one of my favorite, with this format I believe you can grasp the readers attention and work your way into a story that will have them wanting to learn why you are stating such information and what It had to do with your life. The Whiching Hour had me from the start to finish. The way dialogue was composed in the story as well as the setting of the class room and the characters that each one being a small or big character made the story just come to life. The way she expressed the expression on every ones faces down to her own face had me wanting to keep reading. These short stories were a great learning of how to write a short story using different styles such as a small topic no one really thinks about, different language, and a brief summarization of a fairytale or facts.
ReplyDelete-Alicia Lucio
Reading "In Bed" by Joan Didion, I notice that it is a descriptive essay about migraines and a woman suffering from them. She starts the reading on a negative note, describing how she spends almost five times a month in bed. We learn about how when she was younger, she felt the only way to cope was to deny her migraines were even there. After years of trying almost everything towards the end, it seems Joan finds a solution to her problems. After learning to live with her migraines, she explains how she can now expect it, outwit it, and how to regard it. In the end they are no longer migraines to her, but uninvited friends. From denying their existence to personifying her migraines, Joan has figured out how to embrace her psychological error. Ending now on a positive note, Joan tells us she counts her blessings.
ReplyDeleteEven though it was short, I especially liked "El Toro Rojo." Dinty W. Moore knew exactly how to bring the reader in. Describing each man with the bull and carefully choosing his words to describe their interactions made me feel as if I was apart of the audience. As I reached the end I could not help but feel as if this was a lesson about life and death. He states "in your own life, death has lingered... all lives end badly." I feel like what he is saying is that we are the bull, and our life is this dance. We will never be aware of our inevitable death like the oblivious bull, but it is still lingering around us.
In "The Witches Hour" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, I loved the way it started. She was really descriptive introducing us to the aswang. It has a sinister start, before we read about Aimee's younger self, who enjoys her mothers somewhat dark bedtime stories. As the story continues to unfold we read about the tension between Aimee and her teacher. The way the dialogue is set up, it seems as if her teacher is Aimee's real life villain. She questions why her imaginative story is so offensive when other students talk freely about other characters who are not real. What did her teacher have against something that is so cherished to Aimee?
-Brittany Garcia
The three stories I read weren’t as interesting and attractive like the others I read. They were more straight forward, didn’t have as much mystery or surprises like the others did. I did like the story “In Bed”, to be honest. I could really relate to this story, the author is going through something that I’m going through. Everything Joan Didion described about her migraines is exactly what I go through, I especially liked the part where she is talking about how everyone tells her just to take a couple of aspirins and she would be okay, or the fact that people tell her that she “lets” the migraines happen. It was all relatable, I have very horrible and distracting migraines as well, and whenever someone asks what’s wrong I tell them I have a migraine, they tell me that either they’ve had one themselves or that I’ll be fine. I can’t exercise without getting a migraine afterwards for the rest of the day, like I do now. Everyone thinks it’s my “excuse” and that’s what Didion talks about how she tries her best to not mention her migraines because she knows that no one really believes in migraines. “I simply had migraine headaches, and migraine headaches were, as everyone who did not have them knew, imaginary.” (Dalton/Starkey 221). El Toro Rojo, I couldn’t relate to, I just didn’t enjoy it at all, it was very confusing and very brief. It wasn’t until the last two sentences where the author tied the story to his life, the rest of it was more of a summary about a bull fight. This wasn’t a favorite of mine. The Witching Hour was a little more relatable. The part I could relate to was about the drawing and how she had no idea how it was offensive in anyway, to her, it was her culture. Her innocence was relatable, I’ve done things without knowing they were wrong, I think this is a story everyone can relate to as well. I also was intrigued by the part where she is talking about how the kids in her class, and how the teacher allows them to go on and on about Paul Bunyan who is a fable character, and Babe the Blue ox as well, but yet when she want to share a folklore with her class it was wrong. When I read this piece, the author’s tone changed, it got a little more aggressive. I got the idea that the teacher discouraged her culture, and the author felt embarrassed yet angry, she starts talking about how she sort of took pride in these stories because her mother is the one who would tell them to her and her mother was the best story teller. So dealing with the anger from her teacher, she still tried her best to win the contest. After winning she got her innocent revenge by trading her prize for her teacher’s markers. With those markers she drew all the aswangs she wanted and her pride was restored. These stories weren’t what I had expected, for example the title to The Witching Hour made it seem like it was going to be a scary story of some sorts, but it wasn’t. These stories were good, but I honestly feel they could’ve been better.
ReplyDelete-Bibi Ann Gonzalez
“In Bed” by Joan Didion: She was very descriptive the effect a migraine has upon herself and her daily life. The migraine has become a part of her everyday routine that she has to accept it for what it is and despite of that still live life. I found this story very and, I lack better words, very motivating in that obstacles are going to be placed in your life and you have the decision to either stay in bed and try not to deal with the migraine or get out of bed and do something for your life.
ReplyDelete“The Witching Hour” by Aimee Nezhukumatahil: I really related to her story because of my Hispanic culture and growing up my mother and grandmothers way of preventing a child to do something would always involve a cucuy and in her case it was the Asawng. I think her mother would tell her about the Asawng to keep her cautious about the things Aimee does to essentially keep her safe while she is away.
Dinty W. Moore’s, “ El Toro Rojo: His story has a great deal of imagery and the structure of the story makes the reader the sensation that they are in the audience witnessing what is going on with the matador and the bull. I’ve never first hand witness a bull fight, but from what I youtubed it seemed pretty intense.
-Priscilla Pena
In the short story of “In Bed” had me thinking twice about it because it talks about migraines and how it affects the author. Yet at the same time I felt like the author is using the word migraine as a noun, or more of a feeling about the way life works. The author mentions that migraines form within heredity, yet if you think about it…doesn’t everyone go through migraines? The reason why I say this is because the author states, “almost anything can trigger a specific attack of migraine: stress, allergy, fatigue, etc.” I mean doesn’t everybody go through something that falls under that category daily? In my opinion, I think this short story is mainly about someone complaining about life in the beginning. We all have our own struggles that we deal with, and yet at the end of the day, where do we end up? In bed, hence the title…don’t you think? This is just my opinion from reading the short story. The title is “In Bed”, maybe in bed in when we all humans at the end of the day over think about everything before we hit the sheets. Towards the end of the short story, “I have learned to now live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it.” Meaning in the end, this is life and this is how it goes and as you become older, you learn how to overcome the struggles, and ignore the negativity. The last line that made sense was “I count my blessing”. I believe the author just finally understood life as he/she got older. It happens to the best of us. I feel the structure is well written – as far as starting from the beginning, explaining their feelings on migraines, and ending it with how to cope with it.
ReplyDeleteAs far “El Toro Rojo” it made me believe in two different reasons, such as maybe this is the feeling that the bull feels when it is being ridden. Something traumatizing for the bull and the rider at the same time. Or maybe the rider is actually called “the red bull” because the author mentions, “the red bull was not expecting to die, but the colorful bandilleras are plunged into his thick back two at a time.” Meaning the bull is really doing this to the rider causing him to be a traumatic in this moment of his life. Yet at the end, maybe the crowd’s silence cheers the name to give him confidence that he will win no matter what hence the title. I see the structure in my head but not as much while reading.
The witching hour, the title made me think of how the student’s idea of endangered animals got turned down, and slightly embarrassed by the reaction of the teacher. I feel the student held back from recess to really fix the piece and start over. Yet towards the end, the student mentions that she held herself back from recess to draw the “aswang” in her classroom which is why it’s called the witching hour because that’s when it came alive to her – when her mom was talking about it and during class when she would draw about it.
*Arianna Tabares
Joan Didion’s, In Bed, serves as a real look into a very personal problem that causes the author pain and no one seems to believe her. Her writing expresses that frantic feeling of trying to get help but no one hearing her out, a call for help in a crowded room where everyone only cares for themselves. The long sentences and constant motion give the reader a feeling of the chaos that Didion suffers through on a daily basis. This technique will be useful in writing an essay or a short story that can envelope the reader completely. This would make the process of connecting the reader to the material that much easier, allowing the reader to get a small taste of what such a burden can cause without the physical pain.
ReplyDeleteEl Toro Rojo, reminded me of Hemingway’s, The Sun Also Rises, because that book also paints bullfighting in a very romantic light. The description of the fight was like the author was describing a dancer. A beautiful description of a very violent and bloody sport, like in this essay, removes the reader of any predisposition they may have. Writing in this way can bring your audience to some level of appreciation of whatever area, even one they were unaware of. It can bring them to see something that they may otherwise despise and instead of feeling complete disgust make them, at they very least, understand.
The Witching Hour, reads very much like one of the bedtime stories that the authors mother patiently used to tell her before bed. It was a perfect example of subtlety learning to appreciate ones culture despite respite. Important lessons in appreciating one’s self usually make for a good story but are often very outright. At times, not saying things directly and blatantly speak louder. With the subtleness of this essay it wins a great victory in a very quiet way. Including this in a short story would take the moral much further. The reader would feel as though he is on something that only a select few know, this would build up a stronger relationship between the reader and writer.
-Alvaro Pulido
"In Bed" by Joan Didion was solely about her and her experiences with her migraines. During the beginning of her writing, the way she talked about and described her migraines made me think that she was trying to deny their existence. She had migraines in the past, and even regularly, but she attempted to convince herself that they were only "sometimes". Throughout the rest of the reading, I noticed that she would go into great detail about migraines, describing how they work scientifically. Clearly, the migraines have always been a big part of her life. She would talk about all the events that the migraines would interfere with and how she wished a doctor could cure her. But, in the end, she referred to her migraines as a "friend". The story really didn't describe how exactly her view switched, besides from getting wiser with age. The story was well written and perfectly described migraines. There were no secret messages or lessons that I could see. It is my belief that Didion was simply trying to raise awareness for people who suffer from frequent migraines.
ReplyDelete"El Toro Rojo" by Dinty W. Moore was a very short reading. In Moore's writing, the way he structured his story, was to put the reader in the story. The reader is placed into what seems like a rodeo type setting in which you play around with a bull before killing it. Again, there was no message that I could find in this story. However, I think I see where Moore is trying to get. I believe Moore is doing nothing other than giving the reader the sensation of being in the bull's killer's shoes and the thoughts that would be occurring at that moment.
I found "Witching Hour" by Aimee N. to be quite entertaining. This is the only story I could find any kind of message within the passage. Although Aimee was neglected by her teacher for her creativity, in the end Aimee still ended up drawing what she had intended to. To Aimee, this wasn't just any drawing, this was from her mother's stories that was a comfortable scenario for her, as she and her mother had recurring stories at night and shared great moments together.
-Jesus Pena
“In Bed” by Joan Didion was a very dark and gloomy read. Didion does a great job of setting this tone. The author creates this tone from the first line by saying “Three, four, sometimes five times a month, I spend in bed with a migraine headache, insensible to the world around me”. She refers to the horrible migraines as “attacks” which contributes to the tone of the reading. The author lets the reader know how much pain she really is dealing with. The author does this by saying she relieves her pain with drugs and not just saying medicine. In my opinion, the word drug is more intense and makes reader really know how severe the pain is and how difficult it is to deal with migraines. “…And I take certain drugs to revert the arrival..” is quote she uses to justify what she is really going through.
ReplyDeleteIn “El Toro Rojo” by Dinty W. Moore, I was immediately reminded of the “Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway because this is about bullfighting and Hemingway greatly incorporated bullfighting in his works. Back to this writing, despite being short Moore creates vivid imagery. The read is able to picture the bullfighting arena and the matador dancing in the sand with the bull. One line that really grabbed my attention was “A sweep and pass, a deft mariposa, a swirling veronica, all in service of the slaughter”. Moore makes a biblical reference here by saying “swirling veronica”, Veronica is the woman who gave Jesus a rag to wipe the blood of his face. The matador is waving a red cape, if you will, which is referenced as veronica. That was really awesome how Moore included that in this piece.
“The Witching Hour” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil is a work that includes culture, cherished childhood memories, and redemption. The author embeds the usage of culture in the first paragraph by introducing the “aswang” which is creature in folklores from the Philippines. After, Mrs. Johnson scolds her in front of the class causing enormous embarrassment for the child, she is able to redraw and win first prize in the competition. This is conveying a certain value that we need to use in everyday life when facing adversity. This value is perseverance, Nezhukmatahil includes life lessons in her creative piece to enhance her work and to engage the reader in the text also so the reader perhaps take note on this.
-Brandon Garcia
Joan Didion's "In Bed" was the short-story that resonated the most with me only because it covers a personal aspect of my life dealing with the illness of migraines. Dissecting the story is tough when I can't leave the personal aspect out of it because I relate to it too much. I was diagnosed in high school when I was fifteen years old and it's stuck with me all throughout. The vividness and obsession centered on the author's illness sucks you into the story; at least it did for me. I realize the author has conducted extensive research on the illness when I haven't spent enough time doing myself. I guess it doesn't consume my life as much as a person may think it would, but I'm still trying to cope with the migraines when they happen. Sleeping is honestly the best remedy, but it sucks when I miss out on what could've been a productive day. In the last paragraph, it seems to me that Didion is coming full circle about her migraines because of how often they've happened and because they've never went away, and never will. Migraines are a mystery of the world, especially in my case which is relatable to the author's case as well. Alike Didion, I have never been diagnosed with high-blood pressure, eye strain, or a brain tumor. I think about it every once in a while. Why is the pounding in my head so loud? I guess the question will haunt me forever. Last semester I was experiencing one of the worst migraines up to date, and it kept going for a few days. I am certain the overload of stress in my life had everything to do with it. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except spilling my feelings onto paper. I knew I had to lay down to feel better, preferably placing a pillow over my eyes. But the memories of being in the doctor’s office and sitting in that MRI-room half-naked resembled more of a coffin than a rebirth at the time. And, so, I wrote about it. It was a written doodle out of randomness with no specific structure or meaning, just an excerpt of my life with migraines. I’ll share with the class, especially because I get to hide behind a computer screen doing so.
ReplyDelete“State your name and age.”
“Cecilia Ramirez, fifteen years old.”
“Do you drink?”
“No.”
“Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Are you in a relationship that may be causing you stress?”
“No,” I answered.
Girls were troubling and tempting, but I was in no definite relationship.
“Do you participate in extracurricular activities?”
“Yes. I play softball.”
“Do you feel like it adds stress to your life?”
“No. I like it.”
Among other questions and a follow-up MRI scan of my brain, the doctor diagnosed me with mild to severe migraines and then proceeded to prescribe a controlled pill treatment.
I remember waking up with a headache and going to bed with a headache, day in and day out.
Thinking about it now gives me a headache.
The strange thing is that I am under more pressure and stress now than I was in high school, with the overbearing and inevitable duties of adulthood.
It’s been three days and the pounding in my head refuses to go away.
At least this time it makes sense.
-Cecilia Ramirez