ENCW 202 Spring 2022
Posted in Exploitation, Women on Apr 4th, 2022
“The Semplica Girl Diaries” was a story that started out somewhat relatable and then took a turn to the disturbing as George Saunders takes a view on wealth and women in poverty. The narrator has begun keeping a journal “for future generations” after turning 40. He and his family (A wife and three children) are […]
Posted in Women on Mar 30th, 2022
One thing Steven Millhauser is good at is taking the ordinary in our lives and spinning it on its head. “A Change in Fashion” takes the natural changes that happen in fashion. Women start dressing in more and more layers and covering up more. “It was as if, after half a century of reckless exposure, […]
Posted in Motherhood, Women on Mar 15th, 2022
Julia Armfield’s “Salt Slow” was an interesting read. What caught my attention the most of the reading was the allegory which seems to stem from religious ideologies. This story in particular made me think of Noah’s Ark, in the sense that during a disaster a male and female of every species is put into the ark to […]
Posted in Women on Mar 1st, 2022
Honestly, “Difficult at Parties” was one of the harder short stories I’ve read. It’s not a surprise that in writing about the female experience, Machado would end up writing about something at least 1 in 5 women have experienced. It’s a story that you just have to sit with for a while. Though it is […]
Posted in Fairy Tale, Women on Feb 24th, 2022
“As my eyes adjust to the dark, the lights coalesce into silhouettes, and I realize the room is full of women. Women like the one in the viral video, see-through and glowing faintly, like afterthoughts. They drift and mill and occasionally look down at their bodies.” The fantastical qualities exhibited in a high quantity of […]
Posted in Women on Feb 24th, 2022
“Real Women Have Bodies” by Carmen Maria Machado is told in the present and from a first person point of view. In The Memory Police, the narrator is speaking using past tense because she fully disappears at the end of the book, whereas in “Real Women Have Bodies,” the narrator does not fade and relates everything as […]
Posted in Alternative Worlds, Disappearance, Women on Feb 23rd, 2022
In “Real Women Have Bodies,” Carmen Maria Machado once again takes parts of the female experience and spins them together to create another horror story. A dress shop worker begins a relationship with the daughter of one of the shop’s biggest suppliers, Petra. Meanwhile, the world is facing an unknown phenomenon. Women’s bodies are slowly disappearing, losing their […]
“Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax” is a story about Mona and the crew of women who work for a rock girl group. Throughout the story, we hear about the strange happenings when the band is around. At first, we see this when the teenage girls leave the concerts and go out and perform acts of violence, such […]
“Stop Your Women’s Ears with Wax” by Julia Armfield is a story that definitely surprised me to say the least. In my opinion it seems like an alternate coming-of-age story with dark twists throughout. The band, who seem to be sirens, are able to evoke a reaction out of young women. These young women seem […]