Salvage The Bones As A Feminist Critic Changes Your View On The Story

Throughout Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones, many themes are revealed in each chapter, but in chapters 11 and 12 specifically, Ward is able to convey the themes of hope and resilience during and after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. During the hurricane, Esch begins to come to grips with her pregnancy by realizing the strength she has, Randall and Skeetah are seen as the heads of the family and take care of everyone, while daddy s able to soften his character when learning about Esch’s pregnancy. While everything is falling apart around them, the Batiste family is able to keep each other afloat by their willingness to survive and their hope for the future. Ward uses many instances of the care that Big Henry shows after the hurricane and the reshaping of many characters during and after the hurricane to represent that there is always a tomorrow and a chance to better oneself.

In the novel Salvage the Bones by Karen Ward describes the life of a family of 5 living in rural Mississippi, waiting for hurricane Katrina to strike. Esch Baptiste, being the only girl in the novel, showcases her motherly like attitude by taking charge and helping the family. Esch’s lack of knowledge from not having a mother forces her to think maturely to help aid the family to prepare for the hurricane. Her relationships with her brothers and Manny reveals different sides to Esch’s personality; allowing the reader to understand Esch’s character through the different relationships. Esch’s pregnancy also shows her motherly side to the story, as it is linked to her mother’s pregnancy

In this passage from Salvage The Bones, Jesmyn Ward shows how Esch, the main character and narrator of the novel, lost her virginity at a young age. The words that the author uses shows how Esch has started to express her rebellious side but also shows that she still feels hesitant about what she was doing. Even at only twelve years of age, Esch is shown as a girl who’s body has started to change and she starts to become a woman. Jesmyne Ward uses this passage from Salvage The Bones to show that Esch is starting to rebel against authority and even her friend Skeetah, that her body has started to change and she has starting to become a woman, and that sex was as easy as swimming for her when she started having it at an early age.

     Throughout this passage Nancy Mairs uses the word cripple to describe who she is and the beliefs of her condition. She does this by describing her condition in a few different ways; the opinion of others and the opinion of herself. As anyone should she decides what her title as a person should be and she doesn’t listen or care for anyone’s opinion outside of her own. Her tone is very straightforward throughout the passage. Mairs describes her condition and how it relates to the actions and response of other people in any situation.

2. Compare the portrayal of Katrina in Salvage the Bones to what you saw of the hurricane in the news. Which aspect of the storm’s devastation does this novel bring to life? What does Esch’s perspective add to your understanding of Katrina’s impact?

I question whether these two people in the story are having an affair, back together after a divorce, or whatever? Something as simple as bread can lead to that answer. The bread is much like their relationship, actually exactly like it. "We were hungry. We went into a Bakery on Grand Avenue and bought bread. Filled the backseat. The whole car smelled of bread. Big sourdough loaves shaped like a fat ass"(Cisneros 84). It was an affair. They were lusting each other and finally have to give in and it is Grand, like the Avenue, it fills the backseat, and the whole car smells of it. Comparing the bread to an ass also takes on a sexual tone. "We ripped big chunks with our hands and ate"(Cisneros 84). They gorged

The empowerment and the continual push for equal status for women has become widely popular and successful in recent history. Women have stepped out of traditional roles of the housewife, the mother and the submissive doormat to more assertive natures. Many controversial issues surround women’s crusade of freedoms including the widely debated right to choose what she does with her body, referring to an abortion. In 1927 Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story titled, “Hills Like White Elephants” that expressed a feminist movement focusing on this issue. Through the character’s development and ability to come to her own decision despite her boyfriend’s constant pressure suggests a shift towards a powerful feminist theme in a society dominated by men. The story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” reflects how men and women are compared with power and dominance regarding their stereotypical behavior in relation to gender norms; however, this story portrays how a woman steps out of the expectations and takes a stance for what she wants.

A life in the city of Seguin, Texas was not as easy as Cleofilas, the protagonist of the story thought it would be. The author, Cisneros describes the life women went through as a Latino wife through Cleofilas. Luckily, Cisneros is a Mexican-American herself and had provided the opportunity to see what life is like from two window of the different cultures. Also, it allowed her to write the story from a woman’s point of view, painting a vision of the types of problems many women went through as a Latino housewife. This allows readers to analyze the characters and events using a feminist critical view. In the short story “Women Hollering Creek” Sandra Cineros portrays the theme of expectation versus reality not only through cleofilas’s thoughts but also through her marriage and television in order to display how the hardship of women in a patriarchal society can destroy a woman’s life.

In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family.

     Understanding the Cultural differences can lead one to understand Bone from a new perspective. Expectations of difficulty for the women in the book are much more prevalent and the children’s unstable home environment can be understood. Views of

Scrolling through Netflix trying to pick a movie, viewers can generally get the idea of the movie based on the title shown. The first thought that popped into my head after reading the title ‘Fargo’, was how far would an individual strive to achieve and/or accomplish a goal or mission and how far would that individual run if caught in a unforeseen circumstance. The 1996 film ‘Fargo’ by the Coen Brothers, explores a handful of themes such as, life, death and evil. The idea of the movie is that the main character Jerry Lundegaard is a car sales man and is not very good at his job. He is shown no respect from his wife and child and his boss, which is also his father-in-law. The film takes place in a small town in Minnesota. This essay will explore the Feminist and Marxist theory, seen through this film ‘Fargo’ and its characters. The Feminist theory and Marxist theory are mainly seen through the characters Marge, the police officer and Jerry the main character, which the entire movie revolves around.

In Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila were brought together due to circumstances they could not control. Although they were both oppressed wives of a cruel and violent husband, Rasheed, they were eventually able to regain power over their own lives. The two women supported and learned from each other, finding strength in their relationship. Their relationship was an alliance of sorts and was essential to their ability to regain power over their lives. Once Mariam and Laila befriended each other, they each started to gain courage and hope and began to take more control over their lives in separate, small acts of courage and rebellion that eventually led to significant events which cemented their newly regained power. The developing of power did not come without obstacles, but Mariam and Laila were able to persevere and continue to stand up for themselves against both Rasheed and their societal constraints. Finding strength and motivation from each other and from other loved ones essential to their efforts, Mariam and Laila were able to take power over their own lives by standing up to and retaliating against oppressors in a series of events which led to the pivotal moment when Mariam kills Rasheed, finally setting both women free and giving them both complete power over

  Women were once little more than slaves to their male "betters." Some women might have been respected, but their places were limited to roles as wives and mothers. They might rule a home, but were not believed intelligent enough for any other role. This chauvinistic attitude is well reflected in the novels Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

Judith Butler’s approach in “From Undoing Gender” lets the audience see a different side of opinions regarding gender. Judith’s presence and way of speaking lets us look at things in a way we never had before. She demonstrates her way of thinking, acknowledges other peoples ways of thinking and also goes outside the box in creating her own definition of undergoing gender.

For the poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich, I choose the feminist approach for several reasons. The first reason is that the poem shows how many women were prevented of achieving more than just a “good wife” (which is not bad if the woman wants so). For example, the speaker says, “The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band/ Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand” (7-8). This show how she is restrained in this marriage which is a load in her life. The next reason is the marriage is not how it appears to be on many circumstance. For instance, the speaker notes, “When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie” (9). The idea of beautiful hands is a sign that a man or woman does need to work under extreme conditions, and thus, that person has a good life; however, the lie is that that person does not have that good life that others might perceive. The last reason is that the tigers in the poem play an important role because they are a symbolism of how women should be. In the line 3 and 12, the raconteur states “They do not fear the men beneath the tree” and “Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid”. It shows the idea that women should not be fear of men and they are also as capable as men to do whatever they propose to do. The question I hope to answer is why the author wrote the poem, and what was her purpose in doing so (what she wanted to change).