Bechdel Essay The ideas of reading and writing seem intertwined, in order to do one of them you must be able to do the other. Which, makes both equally as powerful as the other in language and literature. Most authors who talk about the ideology of reading and writing, compose their works mainly based off of outside sources, mainly. However, author/comic writer Alison Bechdel composes a story about writing the story and the troubles and hardships she encountered while writing. This oddly more intricate story, though offers a deeper look into Bechdel’s personal life in which she explains her own thoughts as an omnipotent narrator. As the narrator of her own story – showing the character’s (herself) actual thoughts apart from dialogue – …show more content…
She accidentally blocked the easy way of confronting her about the memoir she’s writing about her father. So now she’s left with the only choice of climbing through a tiny window filled with dirt, cobwebs and spiders. As the dream continues, though she realizes there’s a large door behind her which leads to a body of water with stepping stones. She’s found what seems like an easy way out that even lays out the path for her. When she steps on the first rock, instead of being safe, she falls into the water. This symbolizes that there’s no real path to confronting her mother, she has to just dive into talking to her mother about what seems to be a touchy situation. So, dive in she did. Now instead of a basement, Bechdel is in her car when traffic starts to appear while she’s reciting what she wants to say to her mother. In the comic there are road work signs and shoulder closings which symbolize the bumpy path she’s about to encounter and how the road as she goes along it only gets narrower and more dangerous. This is when the story she writes of her father begins, but she soon realizes she cannot “live and write at the same time.” She holds a close encounter with death from a Stroehmann Sunbeam Bread truck – the same kind of truck her father jumped in front of in the attempt and success of suicide. When confronting her mother about the memoir of her father, Bechdel was still
Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own
Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, documents the author's discovery of her own and her father's homosexuality. The book touches upon many themes, including, but not limited to, the following: sexual orientation, family relationships, and suicide. Unlike most autobiographical works, Bechdel uses the comics graphic medium to tell her story. By close-reading or carefully analyzing pages fourteen through seventeen in Fun Home one can get a better understanding of how a Bechdel employs words and graphic devices to render specific events. One can also see how the specific content of the pages thematically connects to the book as a whole. As we will see, this portion of the book echoes the strained relationship
Reading and writing have many connections when it comes to everyday life and school. Students would do better with by both reading and writing being taught together instead of separately rather than being taught as two separate lessons. The article lists and discuss multiple ways for teachers to integrate both reading and writing into their lessons. The article The Reading and Writing connection: Merging Two Reciprocal Content Areas discuss the connection of reading and writing. It also discusses the integration of the two can help struggling readers as well.
Growing up with my parents, I found reading to be very fun but for religious purposes and newspaper about the incidents taking place in certain countries. Through my parents, reading started to seem like it can be beneficial if we want to know what is going on in the world and the rules and regulations of one’s religion. Although I was required to read many books for school, my parents reading habits made me feel as if I should copy them. My mom and dad would always read books or newspapers at a certain time and sometimes discuss it with each other. My parents occasionally told me that I should leave aside school books at times and read the books they do because I can learn a lot and discover many things I did not realize before and
It therefore relates to Lejeune’s idea of the ‘autobiographical pact’ as deals with this concept of the ‘I’ through the voice of Alison. The autographic memoir focuses on her relationship with her father and can be read as a coming out memoir. This memoir contains a sense of autobiographical intimacy as the reader is taken on a journey through the experience of Alison and the truth behind this experience. Julia Watson in her article notes that Bechdel makes “visual connections between photos and memory images… past events, to genealogical legacy, to classical myths of artistic and erotic creation” in order to “interpret and rework the truth of events” (Watson 51-52). Thus, Bechdel abides by the rules of Lejeune’s autobiographical pact as she seals the contract of her identity with her real name at the front of the memoir. She depicts true events, illustrating her own visual world through memory and through these memories the reader is able to reveal her own version of the ‘self’. Through this genre of autography one can visually see the consciousness of Bechdel and her experiences come to life through the images. In her autographical memoir, Bechdel writes “our selves were all we had” (139) as she explores the isolation and detachment her family life existed of: “Our home was like an artists’ colony. We ate together, but
Although the chapters in the book “Leadership Today” tend to follow in a logical sequence, the basic themes like enabling people to contribute more to the organization, energizing people to take lead and grow can be found in variation throughout the book. Why inviting people to be involved in the organization? Why mastering the 2E’s of involvement and integrating the 2E’s in the organization? Those questions capture the essence of this chapter. The responses have been tailored on grounds that when people are given choice and chance, they do the right thing, contribute and make a
The ideas of reading and writing seem intertwined, in order to do one of them you must be able to do the other. Which, makes both equally as powerful as the other in language and literature. Most authors who talk about the ideology of reading and writing compose their works mainly based off of outside sources, mainly. However, author/comic writer Alison Bechdel composes a story about writing the story and the troubles and hardships she encountered while writing. This oddly more intricate story though offers a deeper look into Bechdel’s personal life in which she explains her own thoughts as an omnipotent narrator. As the narrator of her own story – showing the character’s (herself) actual thoughts apart from dialogue – Bechdel introduces
Reader, I begin my tale of woe and despair whilst sitting on the streets of London, watching the commuters pass by. The day is cold, darkened by a drizzling yellow fog and the sky grey like milky porridge. I dig around in my pocket for a minute before dragging out a cigar and lighter, taking a deep drag and inhaling the warm smoke. My existence has been a tormented one, filled with despair and sorrow, and in my last days of sanity, I hope to share it with you, Reader. Sighing, I lay back against the building wall and with eyelids heavy, I doze off.
The ideas of reading and writing seems intertwined; to do one of them one has to know how to do the other. Therefore, this makes both as powerful as the other in language and literature. Most authors who talk about the ideology of reading and writing, compose their works mainly based from outside sources and other author’s works. However, comic writer Alison Bechdel composes a story about the troubles and hardships she encounters while writing. This oddly more intricate story, offers a deeper look into Bechdel’s personal life in which she explains her own thoughts as an omnipotent narrator. As the narrator of her own story – showing the character’s actual thoughts apart from dialogue – Bechdel introduces her main theory: the creation of
Okay, so clearly this kid has no idea what MLA format is. I don’t get it. Did he even look at the rubric? It’s there for a reason. I stretched my arms out behind me and blinked my eyes hard, trying to re-wet them. This assignment was turning into the bane of my existence, and I was only two paragraphs deep. I had made a deal with myself, no more than four hours of grading on the weekends. So much for that. I looked across my desk at the pen holder/old mug and grabbed a new red pen. My current one was only half full of ink and this short story was going to need a novels share of red. I started marking away, and soon the page was thoroughly doused in red ink. Capitalize here…comma splice…indent...that is not how you spell clique. We were in
Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s
I wouldn’t say that I am a good writer, and I really don’t like to read books either. Through my years in school I became literate in these two categories. I was and still am not interested in writing, or reading books in my spare time. The only writing I have ever done is for school. Writing just does not interest me, and the only reading I do out of class is reading about sports in magazines, or reading the news, or looking at web pages. I have only read a couple of books on my own, 95% of all the books I have read have been for school. The reason for not writing out of class is probably attributed to the fact that I am a very impatient person, and I have a short attention span. I have no interest in writing and reading so when
I like that, although our course is about content area reading, it also covers writing, another important literacy skill. I believe that reading and writing should go hand in hand. Reading can enhance writing and vice versa. I understand that some teachers consider reading first before writing because of interpreting reading as a tool to access knowledge and writing as a tool to demonstrate that knowledge. However, to me, which skill should come first is not as important as the fact that without one, the other cannot exist.
This course has expanded my knowledge and view of reading and writing vastly. Following each paper, reading, and class discussion I learned more about myself as a student, and the world as a whole. I have found the books Rules for Writers and Ways of Reading thoroughly helpful throughout the course. This class entails a variety of aspects of the problem-posing concept of education; it truly involves the students and teaches them to think, read, and write individualistically, analytically, and clearly.
Every piece of writing starts from an idea of another piece of writing that has already been written. Writers from the past, present, and even future can all thank one another for their great ideas and inspiration to write. Each piece of writing is either history or history in the making. History last forever, and the reason that people have knowledge about the past is because of writes documentation. Without old writings, one would not have valuable information about how people lived hundreds of years ago, how people acted, as well as how America was run as a country. Therefore, writings from 400 years ago, to even 2016 have not only informed one about history, but also shaped the way Americans live their lives to this day.